


Aetherpact

by DT Maxwell (Draya)



Series: Coffee & Carbuncles [10]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alcohol, Arcanima, Arcanists' Guild, Banter, Battle of Carteneau, Blood, Carbuncle Shenanigans, Card Games, Companionable Snark, Domestic Fluff, Explosives, F/M, Female Friendship, First Kiss, First Meetings, Food Porn, Frenemies, Gen, Getting Together, Goodbyes, Gratuitous Worldbuilding, Hope, Identity Issues, Ivar is a brat of a carbuncle it is known, Mad Science, Mad Scientists, Multiple Warriors of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Patch 2.4: Dreams Of Ice, Patch 3.1: As Goes Light So Goes Darkness Spoilers, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Romantic Fluff, Ryne is an angel and we don't deserve her, Serious Injuries, Shovel Talk, Synesthesia, The Binding Coils of Bahamut Spoilers, The Shifting Altars of Uznair, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2019, Violence, Vitriolic Friendship, Worldbuilding, and trying to impose more logic on game mechanics, but it's ambiguous whether it's legit or Rereha just trying to get a rise out of Nero, don't mess with Synnove's snacks, fine i'll do it my own damn self!, hinted Cid/Nero, i enjoyed every moment of it, listen i love Alphinaud but during ARR he is goddamn insufferable, so he's going to get dragged and a lot during the chapters set in 2.4, summoner can now use firebird trance and there's no explanation?, where there's an arcanist there is a very large boom, yes i did forcibly apply logic to an in-game mechanic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 16:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 43,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draya/pseuds/DT%20Maxwell
Summary: Collection of completed and cleaned up fills from the FFXIV Write 2019 Challenge on Tumblr. Featuring the quartet of Warriors of Light-turned-Darkness (Synnove Greywolfe, Rereha Reha, Dancing Heron, and Alakhai Noykin), a trio of mischievous carbuncles, explosions and obsessive research at the Arcanists' Guild, the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights of Ishgard, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, a hero-turned-ghost, and an oracle finding her way in the world.Contains spoilers forShadowbringersMSQ where noted.Prompt 30 [Darkness]:The Sunless Seaor,A Ghost's Hope.Spoilers for Shadowbringers MSQ up to the beginning of the second half of Kholusia.--See the Table of Contents for individual summaries and necessary warnings of previously uploaded chapters.





	1. Table of Contents

**1\. Table of Contents**  
You are here!

**2\. [First Meetings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49539008#workskin)**  
Pre-Aymeric/WoL, featuring the Squad, Alphinaud, Haurchefant, Aymeric, Minfilia, and a carbuncle in a world of trouble during the first half of the events of Patch 2.4: Dreams of Ice.

**3\. [The Choices We Make](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49571567#workskin)**  
SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS; EDEN SPOILERS  
Gen, featuring Synnove and Ryne post-MSQ.

**4\. [Bloodhound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49612406#workskin)**  
MILD SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS  
Mostly-Gen with pre-Aymeric/WoL, featuring the Squad, the carbuncles, Alphinaud, Haurchefant, Lucia, and the events of Patch 2.4; Shadowbringers spoilers are contained in the very last section of the story.

**5\. [Poor Impulses](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49666919#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring the Squad, Halulu, and Rereha throwing everyone under the chocobo cart.

**6\. [Fifth Invocation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49708073#workskin)**  
Aymeric/WoL, featuring the Squad, the carbuncles, Aymeric, and some good ol' fashioned treasure hunting.

**7\. [Strict Proof Eternal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49750046#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Synnove, Mhaslona Fhilfhiswyn, and a very important summoning.

**8\. [Absolution](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49790540#workskin)**  
SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS  
Gen, featuring the Squad and Urianger during the events of the level 79 quest _The Unbroken Thread_.

**9\. [Tonk!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49826591#workskin)**  
MILD SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS  
Gen, featuring the Squad, Ardbert, and some ways to pass the time.

**10\. [Finally](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49861136#workskin)**  
Aymeric/WoL, featuring Aymeric, Synnove, and how exactly they finally got over themselves.

**11\. [A Spark of Chaos](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49892501#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Rereha, Synnove, and a first encounter.

**12\. [Pyromania](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49925189)**  
MILD SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS  
Gen, featuring the Squad, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, Ivar, and Ivar's neverending desire to set the world on fire.

**13\. [Boom (or Bust)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49957820#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Synnove, Keltgeim Eyristyrwyn, Starling Nightsong, A'khebica Ginwa, and a very important--and volatile--test at the Range.

**14\. [To Tend the Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/49999409#workskin)**  
MILD SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS  
Gen, featuring Synnove, the carbuncles, Alisaie, Alphinaud, and the seeds of a new summoning.

**15\. [Escape](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50035877#workskin)**  
Aymeric/WoL, featuring Synnove, Aymeric, and a frantic escape from Ishgard.

**16\. [Shovel Talk](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50070278#workskin)  
**Aymeric/WoL, featuring Aymeric, Lucia, and Angharad Greywolfe.

**17\. [Math Binging](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50103176#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Synnove, Tyr, Halulu, and Synnove being a lunatic obsessive arcanist.

**18\. [Needling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50134613#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Admiral Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn, Synnove, Tyr, and the business of the thalassocracy.  
**MINOR WARNING** for consumption of alcohol.

**19\. [Fatigue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50154023#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Krile, the Squad, and the aftermath of the Imperial attack on Rhalgr's Reach.  
**WARNINGS** for violence, blood, and serious injury.

**20\. [Suffer, Promise, Witness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50154260#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Synnove, Galette, and Tyr at the Battle of Carteneau.  
**WARNINGS** for descriptions of violence, battle, blood, and the end of the world.

**21\. [Decadence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50240159#workskin)**  
Aymeric/WoL, featuring Synnove, Aymeric, Galette, and a chocolate hazelnut cheesecake.

**22\. [Understaffed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50277056#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Synnove, Cid Garlond, Keltgeim, Starling, A'khebica, a surprise guest, and looming deadlines.

**23\. [Farewell, and into the Inevitable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50309669#workskin)**  
SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS  
Gen, featuring the Squad, Minfilia, and the Oracle of Light during the events of the level 77 quest _Crossroads_.

**24\. [Research](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50344085#workskin)  
**Gen, featuring Synnove and some Arcanists' Guild worldbuilding.

**25\. [Oh, Hells No](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50374928#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Synnove, Galette, Arthur O'Donnell, and the circumstances under which Galette _won't eat dessert_.

**26\. [Of Taunting and Tales](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50407397#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Rereha, Nero Scaeva, and how to entertain your bedridden former-enemy-turned-sorta-friend.

**27\. [Paperwork](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50441141#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Kan-E-Senna, a quiet day in the office, and some introspective worldbuilding.

**28\. [Briefing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50479934#workskin)**  
Gen, featuring Synnove, Starling, A'khebica, Yjra Fex, Keltgeim, Nemene Boann, Arthur, X'ondarya Mitnu, Halulu, and an incredibly boring war games briefing.

**29\. [Routines](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50516162#workskin)**  
Aymeric/WoL, featuring Synnove, Aymeric, the carbuncles, and breakfast at home.

**30\. [Antonomasia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50549945#workskin)**  
SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS  
Gen, featuring Ryne, the Squad, and the importance of identity.

**31\. [The Sunless Sea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838770/chapters/50583833#workskin)**  
SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS  
Gen, featuring the Squad, Ardbert, the carbuncles, and the return of hope.


	2. First Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 1: Voracious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187427941631/ffxiv-write-entry-1-first-meetings) on September 1, 2019.

Rereha honestly hadn’t even intended to pay much attention at first: Alphinaud was taking point yet again and bulldozing his way along about their stated goals without any input from them, and Heron and Synnove were the ones who would probably be giving Minfilia the official Scion report on the outcome of this meeting. In private. Without Alphinaud’s own commentary.

(Honestly, it was a wonder Alakhai hadn’t shanked him back at the Rising Stones for the comment about “ingratiating” themselves with Haurchefant. Even her own cynical Ul’dahn heart sometimes just wanted to help people _for the sake of helping them_, without the ulterior motive of calling in a return favor later down the road_._ Gods, Alphinaud, you’re sixteen, go get hammered and a girlfriend or a boyfriend or maybe both and _relax_.)

Anyway, Rereha was here to stand on a chair and look pretty. Maybe have a cup of that _excellent_ hot chocolate Haurchefant was always so delighted to dole out when one of them visited Camp Dragonhead. Indulge her hedonistic tendencies with one of those cream-stuffed puff pastries the Ishgardian had promised to have prepared for the meeting in the Intercessory.

She was absolutely, one hundred percent ready to zone out and not give a single godsdamn fuck about anything, right up until Ser Aymeric said, “I am not too proud to admit that I have followed your activities with an interest bordering on fascination. Full glad I was to learn that you would be joining us.”

The words were couched such that to anyone else, he was clearly talking about, and to, all four Warriors of Light. Except he was looking _right at Synnove._ Who had, perhaps, the faintest of blushes on her cheeks despite her otherwise businesslike, stoic expression. And Rereha could only tell because she’d known the other woman for nearly twenty years at this point.

That’s when Rereha’s Echo woke up and smacked her right across the face.

Heron had once jokingly said that Rereha’s personal Echo gift, beyond the very helpful abilities all Echo-bearers received from the Mothercrystal, was the ability to know when someone was having less than pure thoughts, considering how often Rere made bawdy jokes at someone’s expense—if she wasn’t outright blackmailing them—at just the right moment. The thing was, Heron wasn’t exactly _wrong._ Her Echo wasn’t telling her _exactly_ what someone was thinking, but it always gave her a very strong poke when someone in the immediate vicinity had _lust_ on the mind.

Though, really, Rere didn’t need the Echo to tell her that one Ser Aymeric de Borel was “fascinated” (_hah!_) by Synnove. That hadn’t been a subtle line in the least (well, not to _her_, since “overprotective big sister” Heron hadn’t twitched, but then admittedly Rere saw innuendo everywhere). And just who had been telling tales, anyway, hmm?

She caught Haurchefant’s eye as they all settled around the table. Arched an eyebrow. _What the hells?_

He discretely shrugged one shoulder, mouth quirking up just slightly on one side in a wry little smile. _Tell you later._

She flicked her fore and middle fingers at him. _Holding you to that._

Rereha, of course, completely zoned out on what Alphinaud and the Lord Commander were actually saying, though the bunny was getting frazzled, which was a delight and a half, and Synnove and Heron’s reports would be appropriately hilarious to go through once she read through the lines. Instead, she paid more attention to where Ser Aymeric’s eyes were: frequently on Alphinaud, as the black-haired elezen was in fact here to act as a representative of the Holy See, but Rere saw his gaze flick to Synnove every now and then. When he did, Rere’s Echo gave a slight ping.

So, _probably_ not wanting to throw Synnove down on the table and ravish her right then and there. (At least not at this particular moment in time, thus he probably wasn’t an exhibitionist as far as she could tell.) But he was definitely attracted to her. Definitely, indisputably attracted to Synnove Greywolfe.

And well, well, well, wasn’t that interesting? Synnove couldn’t take _her_ eyes off Ser Aymeric at all. She might have been smoldering, just a little. This had Potential.

(Thankfully, Rere’s Echo didn’t kick up a fuss for anyone in her immediate circle of friends and family and acquaintances. While the teasing would be _epic,_ the nightmares would be awful. Heron and Synnove and Alakhai were her sisters and _ew ew ew ew ew!_)

As Ser Aymeric and the bunny (he was being insufferable, she was going to call him the bunny, even if it was only in her head, since he hated the nickname so much) seemed to be winding down their discussion, however, Rereha noticed…a sound. Somewhere off to the left, behind one of the partitions here in the Intercessory. Where Haurchefant had mentioned the kitchen staff had set up the pastries for after the meeting. It sounded an awful lot like…

Oh. Oh, no.

Rereha’s eyes widened and she frantically looked around. Oh, _no._

Oh noooooooo! Not the cream-stuffed puff pastries! _Those were her favorite!_

“Oh noooooooo,” she moaned aloud, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Is aught amiss?” the bunny said.

Rere ignored him and looked right at Synnove. “_Where’s Galette?_” she hissed.

The Highlander stared back, horror quickly suffusing her features, and was up and out of her chair so fast that it rocked from side to side before landing back upright with a loud clatter. She darted around the partition, and there was a brief moment of silence before her angry shriek echoed throughout the Intercessory: _“GALETTE, YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE RIGHT NOW._”

“_Mya!”_ Oh, that was definitely the sound of a carbuncle with her mouth full.

All of them were on the feet and rounding the partition to see the damage.

The long buffet-style table that had been set up against the partition had, at one point, been covered in platters and trays of sweet confections and baked goods. There was a smear of rolanberry compote on the tablecloth. And over there, almond croissants had once sat, based on the slivers of nuts and what was probably marzipan on the otherwise empty serving tray. The sugar bowl for tea was upended on its side, licked clean. Rereha recognized the decimated crumbs of her favorite cream puffs on one plate and pouted.

Alakhai smacked Haurchefant’s arm with the back of her hand. “You _know_ better,” the Xaela hissed.

“I do,” he said mournfully. “Optimistic fool that I am, I thought she would behave for this meeting. And she got to the fudge first, of course.” He was pouting just as hard as Rereha, and she couldn’t blame him: the chocolate walnut fudge was his favorite, and the Dragonhead cooks were very good at making it.

Standing over the table was an incandescently enraged Synnove Greywolfe, right fist on her hip, left hand holding a completely unrepentant emerald carbuncle by the scruff up to her eye level. Galette was covered in cream and frosting and fruit compote and crumbs, paws a filthy mess and tucked close to her body, and the last éclair dangling from her mouth. Her trio of tails lashed about frantically; she _knew_ she was in deep trouble.

“Drop it,” Synnove hissed.

Galette stared at her mama with huge, dark eyes. She yipped around her mouthful of pastry. _But I’m cute and fluffy!_

Synnove’s glare intensified. She also might have growled.

(Rerea’s Echo pinged _hard,_ and it took all of her willpower to keep from whipping her head around to stare at Ser Aymeric with her jaw hanging open. All right, wow, she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to know that. Maybe he was a switch?)

Galette stared back for another few, long moments. Then she untucked her paws, reached forward, and used them to shove the whole éclair into her mouth in one gulping swallow. She beamed at Synnove and said, “Mya!”

Rere could hear Heron and Haurchefant both desperately trying to keep from bursting out laughing, even as Alakhai groaned loudly. The bunny was sputtering and making apologies, while Ser Aymeric’s Second chuckled softly.

Synnove, meanwhile, went from enraged to resigned discouragement, sighing heavily and grabbing a napkin to start cleaning Galette’s face. “You are,” she said to her carbuncle, wiping roughly, “a disgrace. A degenerate, uncultured hooligan. You act as if I never feed you. What an awful first impression to make, as if you had no _manners._”

Galette just purred smugly.

Rereha carefully turned to look out of the corner of her eye. Ser Aymeric was ignoring Alphinaud, who didn’t seem to notice he _was_ being ignored, and his histrionic handwringing, and instead was looking at Synnove as she scolded Galette. His expression was, to her practiced eye, besotted.

Oh, yes, indeed. This had Potential.

* * *

“Of course, that’s when the guard burst in announcing that the Fortemps caravan to Revenant’s Toll had been attacked by heretics,” Rereha said, draining her cup of strong mint tea.

Minfilia scowled in disappointment. “Oh, of course it was,” she said around a piece of Ala Mhigan halva. She took a sip of tea and swallowed. “Always at the most inopportune moment to ruin the tension.”

The pair sat in Minfilia’s private solar, just off the Antecedent’s formal receiving room and office. A proper Ul’dahn high tea (with bits and pieces of Ala Mhigan influence—really, their confectionary was the best) laid spread between them, presented in a delicate silver service that Minfilia had received from F’lhaminn. While Heron and Synnove and Alakhai typically delivered the Antecedent the formal report that would be written up and included in the Scions’ official records, Rereha gave Minfilia the bard’s eye view, with emotion and embellishment and _all_ the juicy details—and it was just so much more fun to share the embarrassing gossip about their friends and family over tea and sweets.

(She just hadn’t been expecting this meeting to be one of those times! And what juicy details they were indeed.)

“That being said,” Rereha drawled, pouring herself a fresh cup and adding a generous spoonful of cactus honey powder, “it meant Synnove got to have Galette redeem herself with that nose of hers.”

Minfilia leaned forward, grinning into her own mug. Her expression was equal parts eager and mischievous. “And impress a certain Lord Commander even further in the process?”

“Now, now, my dear,” Rere said, wagging her finger. “I can’t be doing _all_ the sharing. Let’s save _that_ story for another time.”

Minfilia pouted at her, sticking her lower lip out so far it had to be affected exaggeration. Rereha sputtered on her tea at the sight, and threw back her head to cackle. After a moment to drive her point home, Minfilia joined her laughter, and once they calmed, she launched into the recent misadventures of Hoary Boulder and Coultenet.

(It wasn’t until moons later, on the _Enterprise_ as they escaped Ul’dah to Coerthas, that Rereha heartbrokenly realized she had never told Minfilia the second part of the story.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, I did in fact deeply enjoy that gut punch at the end! :D
> 
> EDIT: I was fortunate enough to get a slot on BritishMuffin's Inktober 2019 project, and I picked #25, Tasty--to which I asked Muffin if she could draw Galette's dessert buffet binge from this fic! You can see the finish product in all its glory [HERE!](https://britishmuffin.tumblr.com/post/188585384421/25-tasty-dragons-bones-synnove-with-the)


	3. The Choices We Make

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 2: Bargain
> 
> (Spoilers for Shadowbringers MSQ and Eden.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187453987676/) on September 2, 2019.

“Synnove? May I speak with you?”

Synnove looked up from her grimoire, lifting her quill from the array in an unconscious gesture to keep from potentially smearing the aetheric ink. She blinked a few times and shook her head to banish the mental cobwebs of narrowing her focus to work on arcanima for multiple bells. Once she felt more certain about _where_ and _when_ she was, she smiled and set down her grimoire to the side so the ink could dry. “Of course, Ryne,” she said, patting the spot next to her.

The redhead plopped down on the blanket, smoothing her skirt as she settled herself. Tyr took the opportunity to be free of acting as Synnove’s bookrest to crawl into Ryne’s lap—or at least get as much of his front half into her lap as he could, _maow_ing excitedly as he loafed on top of her. Ryne obediently snuggled him, scratching behind his ears, and Tyr started up his brass bell purr.

Synnove waited patiently for Ryne to gather her thoughts, leaning back on her hands. The Empty was quiet, but no longer the eerie total silence of utter desolation; running water susurrated not far from their camp now, and in the distance, Eden and its engine-heart thrummed under the stars.

Finally, Ryne spoke up, voice hesitant: “Do you ever wonder if it was all worth it? I mean…” She chewed on her lower lip as she stroked Tyr’s head. “Everything that led us here. All the good and the bad and the in between. Do you ever wonder? Do you ever wish you could do it differently?”

Synnove rocked back a little, startled despite herself, before she leaned back over to wrap an arm around Ryne’s shoulders. The young girl burrowed in, both for the comfort and the warmth: even a desert of primordial Light was still a desert at night.

“Of course I do, duckling,” the Highlander said quietly. “There are so many things that have happened over the years, and sometimes it’s overwhelming to think about them all, or even just one of them. Mental hurts and physical hurts.”

The Fall of Ala Mhigo. Losing her uncle and grandfather. The Battle of Carteneau and the cataclysmic ravaging of Eorzea by the Dreadwyrm. Losing friends: on the killing fields of Carteneau; in the aqueducts of Ul’dah; in the Vault; in the skies of Azys Lla; atop the battlements of Baelsar’s Wall. Zenos’s sword in her belly, the Scions falling one by one to some unknown affliction, the aether of three then four then _five_ Lightwardens eating her alive.

“But that’s what makes us people,” Synnove continued, resting her cheek on Ryne’s hair. “The doubts, the regrets, the what ifs. Of course we wonder what could have been, if we had made a different choice, if fate had been a little kinder. Did we try hard enough? Was there another way?”

“Sometimes I wish I could have convinced Ran’jit to help us,” Ryne said, nearly stumbling over the words she blurted them out so quickly. “He wasn’t—he hadn’t always been so cruel. I wish that I could have made the right argument, the one where he would realize this was all wrong and he would help me escape Vauthry. Or, later, after Thancred rescued me, that he’d turn against him.”

Synnove nodded against Ryne’s head. “And there’s the rabbit hole, my duckling. Thinking like that, it drives a person mad. Too many variables, too many influences, what’s the one thread to pluck to unravel it all?”

Ryne hummed tunelessly, continuing to pet Tyr’s head; the carbuncle was starting to list into sleep, head drooping forward to push into her belly. Finally, she said, “Do you think that’s what happened with Emet-Selch?”

“I think it was part of it,” Synnove said slowly. “Grief, too. Overwhelming, maddening grief for a people and a place he had loved with all his heart now long gone, just festering for millennia.” Drily: “The tempering probably didn’t help much, either.”

Ryne giggled despite herself.

“There’s plenty about the man we’ll never know,” Synnove continued. “And that kind of speculation is maddening in and of itself. Here’s the thing, though: how much else changes when you try to turn the bad to good, or at least lessen it? How many of the good things, the people and the experiences, suddenly vanish? How many new bad situations will occur in the opportunities created by one change?”

Rereha and Heron and Alakhai, the sisters of her heart. Galette and Tyr and Ivar, her beloved, mischievous, darling carbuncles. The joy of solving her first mathematics problems under the astonished eye of Rereha’s tutor, the wonder and delight of arcanima as she drew her first array. The Scions: Minfilia and Y’shtola, Thancred and Urianger, Lyse and Papalymo, Alisaie and Alphinaud, Tataru and Arenvald, and all the rest of their own still home on the Source, holding the line against the Empire and the dark. Her brilliant, mad family at the Guild. Aymeric, the love of her life.

Summer storms in Limsa Lominsa, rolling in from the west off the Indigo Deep or racing north from the Cieldalaes in the Rhotano Sea. Aunt Angharad’s bone-crushing hugs, in celebration or for comfort or sometimes just for the sheer joy of it. Fireworks at Moonfire, candy at All Saint’s, kisses under the mistletoe at Starlight.

Defending Eorzea from the implacable might of the XIVth Legion and its Allagan superweapon. Ending the thousand-year long Dragonsong War, with Ishgardians and Dravanians alike coexisting peacefully once more. Freeing Doma and Ala Mhigo and lighting the fires of renewed resistance throughout the conquered Garlean provinces. Pushing back the rapacious Light, so the stars could shine on Norvrandt once more.

“The journey is long, and painful,” Synnove murmured, staring up at the sunless sea glittering overhead, “and gods, sometimes it’s just bloody unfair. Why me, why us, why not someone else. And the journey forward will likely be just as difficult. But I think, if given the opportunity to do it all over again and make different choices, I wouldn’t take it. It wasn’t easy getting here, but I like exactly where I am.”

“Me, too,” Ryne said, hugging her. “Thank you, Synnove.”

Synnove smiled and hugged her back. “You’re very welcome, Ryne.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ryne is my favorite. Out of the whole damn expac, Ryne is my favorite and I will FUCKING FIGHT TO DEFEND HER MY PRECIOUS DARLING DAUGHTER.
> 
> Also yes this was kinda my post-MSQ wrap up thinky thought piece.


	4. Bloodhound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 3: Lost
> 
> (Immediately follows _First Meetings._)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187478842716/) on September 3, 2019.

Not even Rereha was one to make light of a massacre, and that’s exactly what the remains of the caravan to Revenant’s Toll were. The bodies had already been brought to the Observatorium, thankfully, and just in time: a blizzard had roared out of the west, bringing with it howling wind and more godsdamned contemptable _snow._ She scowled behind her scarf and tugged her hat down more firmly over her ears at a particularly brutal gust. Bloody fucking cold.

The snow was rapidly covering the charred remains of the wagons and the blood where Ishgardian knights had fallen; the winds had long blown away any footprints. Heron and Alakhai were speaking to the House Fortemps knight in charge of the guards that had secured the site, whereas Synnove and all three of her carbuncles were stalking the perimeter. Tyr and Ivar were primarily clearing the snow for Galette, who had her nose to the ground, sniffing intently at everything, while Synnove hung back, letting them work as they saw fit.

Rereha narrowed her eyes. Galette wasn’t even complaining about the cold and snow like usual, which meant she might have _something._

Heron and Alakhai joined her, both looking over at Galette as the emerald carbuncle intently circled one particular spot. The Hellsguard and the Xaela exchanged a glance, and then looked down at Rereha. She blinked back up at them. “What’d ya learn?” she said, voice muffled through her layers of scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face.

“One survivor,” said Alakhai.

“A squire, currently recuperating over at the Observatorium,” added Heron.

“And the cargo included _crystals._ All of them gone.”

Rereha tilted her head towards Synnove and the carbuncles. Galette was still circling that one spot, but now her ears were pricked straight up like a hare’s and her tails were lashing madly as her brothers sat down out of her way. She drawled, “We going to bother untangling that thread?”

Alakhai snorted. Heron grinned, the white of her teeth blinding against her deep russet skin.

“Didn’t think so,” Rereha said. “So: who’s telling the bunny?”

The trio looked at one another, then over at Synnove. She was already scowling back at them, one finger on her nose.

“How does she do that?” Rereha muttered, her tone that of someone who has asked the question countless times before, and would continue to ask countless times into the future. She turned her attention back to the other members of their group—and scowled ferociously. “Oh, fuck you both!”

Heron and Alakhai _also_ had their forefingers touching their noses, the rotten traitors, which meant _she_ got to deal with His Pretentiousness.

Rereha held up both middle fingers at them; the pair merely laughed at her.

Still scowling, she shoved her gloved hand up under the earflap of her hat to tap her linkpearl cuff. “Oi, bunny, pick up.”

Indignant sputtering came over the line. “Rereha, how many more times must I ask you not to call me that?”

“All of them, because I don’t give a fuck. Put the ‘pearl on open speaker so Haurchefant and that dreamy tall glass of water can hear me.”

“_REREHA REHA._” Oh dear gods, she was never going to get tired of scandalizing that boy, it was almost _too_ easy.

“Shall I take that as a compliment, then?”

Rereha grinned wolfishly as the voice of Ser Aymeric’s blonde Second and the dreamy tall glass of water in question echoed across the linkpearl with a chuckle. “Ma’am, please do. I will write songs about how badly I’d like to climb you like a tree, and get thrown out of the Quicksand by Momodi until I get new material because I won’t stop and the patrons are bored.”

Both Haurchefant _and_ the Temple Knight’s laughter came through that time, easily drowning out Alphinaud’s sputtering. Heron and Alakhai rolled their eyes, and Synnove gestured rudely from the other end of the caravan to stop flirting and hurry it up.

“Anyway, one of the squires survived, he’s currently at the Observatorium, but we’ll—”

“I will meet you there, once we have his report we can best decide how to—”

Rereha sighed. Loudly. “Alphinaud, we aren’t doing that.”

“—I beg your pardon?”

With a herculean effort, she held onto her patience as she said, slowly, so as not to be misunderstood, “Alphinaud, bunny: you are more than welcome to acquire the squire’s testimony yourself, but there is only one reason _I _can think of for why a bunch of heretics want _an obscene amount of crystals._ What they intend to summon, I don’t know, and I don’t care, but we need to quash this _now._”

Rereha nodded in satisfaction as a horrified silence settled over the command room back at Camp Dragonhead.

She continued, “As I was going to say before your eagerness to lead the charge interrupted me, there’s one survivor at the Observatorium, but we won’t be heading that way, since Galette has gotten the scent. We’ll be following her instead_._”

There was a long moment of quiet over the line, before the Temple Knight asked, somewhat incredulously, “She can _do_ that?”

“Ma’am,” Rereha said respectfully, “Galette knows when the Bismarck is making chocolate pudding pie for their daily dessert special from Three Malm Bend at the northern end of Middle La Noscea, and won’t stop begging Synnove for a slice until they _actually go get it._ She can absolutely sniff out an obscene amount of aether-charged crystals and blood-covered heretics in the middle of a blizzard.”

“What about aetheric interference from—”

“Alphinaud,” and she was much less respectful and far more annoyed now, patience finally fraying, “before you finish that question, I’d like to remind you that the assessors of Mealvaan’s Gate know every trick in the smuggler’s book for trying to get illicit cargo into Limsa Lominsa, Galette has a one hundred percent success rate, _and_ Synnove will have no qualms about throwing you off the Aftcastle if you question her carbuncle’s abilities and programming.”

Alphinaud’s mouth snapped closed with an audible clack of teeth. He said, chastised, “…Duly noted. My apologies.”

Rereha hummed noncommittally. “In any event, we’re off. We’ll check back in once we’ve got a location. Toodles!” She snapped the line closed and dropped her hand from her ear.

“All right, ladies, the sooner we get this taken care of, the sooner we can find someplace with a roaring fireplace to sit in front of and drink hot cocoa.”

* * *

The quartet followed the trio of carbuncles on their chocobos, their mounts all used to following the lead of the aether constructs. It was especially helpful now, with the blizzard raging through the highlands and reducing visibility to almost nothing: the glow of Galette and Tyr and Ivar kept the birds from veering off course.

Galette lead them northwest from the caravan ruins for at least two bells, across Boulder Downs in near a straight line. She bounded through the snow, deviating only from her course to ensure they stayed on as even ground as possible and didn’t have to climb down and then up the sides of the great impact craters that scarred the landscape from Dalamud’s fall. Eventually, they came right up to the cliff wall of one of the smaller Coerthan peaks; Galette sniffed frantically back and forth at a section of rockface, growling in frustration, as the women and their chocobos pulled up next to her.

Synnove looked around cautiously. “Tunnels, perhaps?”

“Aye,” Alakhai said. “Lord Drillemont muttered about it once to Haurchefant; he suspects it’s how the heretics are able to move so quickly throughout Coerthas.”

Heron had pulled out one of her maps, holding it up practically to her nose to read it as the storm raged around them. She nodded, rolled it up, and slid it back into its tube on her saddle. “We’re not far from Daniffen Pass,” she called out. “Let’s take that up to Whitebrim and see if Galette can pick the trail back up from there!”

Synnove whistled sharply. All three carbuncles immediately darted over at the command; Chantilly braced herself, and Tyr leaped onto the pillion pad right behind Synnove, with Galette scrambling to take her customary place around Synnove’s neck, and Ivar settling into the saddle in front of his mama. However, rather than trying to snuggle down into Synnove’s fur-lined jacket, Galette had her ears pricked and her face turned due northwest, even as the group turned their chocobos northeast towards the pass through the mountains.

“Pick the trail back up? That implies she’s lost it at all,” Rereha said once they made it to the tunnel that would take them into the Whitebrim region. She shook the snow off herself, and brushed it free of Madrigal’s feathers; the jennet warked her thanks.

And, indeed, Galette’s nose was still pointing towards where the heretics had likely buggered off to, almost true west, now. Synnove reached up to scratch behind her ears, and Galette gave a quiet purr, but the normally sugar-obsessed carbuncle was currently all business. The group lapsed into a comfortable silence as they proceeded through the pass.

When they emerged from the tunnel, the storm had finally dissipated, and night had fallen. Another half a bell and they crested the rise, Ishgard rising from the Sea of Clouds far to the north of them. A malm away from their position, glittered the welcoming torchlight of the fortifications at the Whitebrim Front.

And Galette was _staring_ due west, carefully sniffing at the air. She flicked an ear forward, almost as if she was listening to something, and chittered quietly. _Mommy, they’re that way._

Synnove gave the carbuncle another ear scratch, following her haze. “Snowcloak,” she said.

Heron nodded grimly. “Probably not their only encampment, either. If they’re able to move between Snowcloak and Boulder Downs undetected so easily…”

Alakhai grimaced. “At least one traitor or sympathizer at one of the Ishgardian outposts,” she said. “Someone with access to the guard rotations, perhaps?”

“And they have a golden opportunity to move their troops in such a way they can potentially surround an attacking force,” Rereha finished.

“What a fine mess,” Synnove drawled.

When the four friends made the gates at the Whitebrim Front, cold and tired and ready to be done with the day, they were met by Lord Drillemont himself. As grooms took their chocobos to the stables, the Durendaire knight led the group into the command post and up to his office. They were met with mugs of hot cider, bowls of thick, hearty stew for themselves and the carbuncles—and one Ser Aymeric, who had apparently been conferring with Lord Drillemont over the defenses.

Rereha took especial pleasure in noting that both the Lord Commander _and_ Synnove seemed to perk up at the sight of one another. As she ate her dinner, she listened as Lord Drillemont shared what information the lone survivor of the caravan had acquired, confirming that this Iceheart and her followers were apparently planning to summon a primal. Heron and Synnove gave the full report of their investigation, and Rere snickered quietly as Ser Aymeric turned an appreciative gaze on both Synnove and Galette.

“You are a most remarkable creature, little miss,” he said to Galette. “And Ishgard is grateful for your assistance in verifying our suspicions about how Iceheart and her followers have evaded justice for so long.” The carbuncle preened at the attention, sitting up primly and draping her tails about her elegantly.

(One could almost forget she’d consumed an _entire dessert buffet_ all by herself earlier that day, the piglet.)

“And of course, I must thank her summoner for such superb guidance and aptitude,” Ser Aymeric said to Synnove, smiling at her.

Rere’s Echo _pinged_ again.

Wait, no. Had that been a purr? That had definitely been a purr. Ho-ly _shite,_ Ser Aymeric had _purred_ that sentence at Synnove, of this Rereha was one hundred percent certain. Oh, and he had not been as subtle as he had been in the Intercessory this morning, because Alakhai was Looking at him like she was figuring out the best spot to stick a knife and Heron had narrowed her eyes in the way that meant she was going to find the best spot herself for Alakhai to stick a knife. And Synnove was _absolutely_ blushing.

Rereha grinned into her mug of cider. This was going to be _fantastic._

* * *

“And that, my lovely little fox kit,” Rereha said cheerfully, “is why you don’t leave anything sweet unattended if you want to eat it yourself, but also why if you want something found, you go ask Galette!”

Ryne clapped in delight, smiling fit to burst as she sat across the table from Rereha, between Synnove and Alakhai. Synnove had her elbows braced on the table and her face in her hands, and she _groaned_ as Heron patted her on the head. Alakhai merely snickered.

“Fuck’s sake, Rere,” Synnove said, voice muffled. “Did you have to include _that_ much side commentary about Aymeric being attracted to me?”

“Yes,” Rere said with a firm nod. “It is absolutely imperative for future generations to understand how disgustingly over the moon that man was and still is for you, but I will not allow it be known only as a pure, chivalric romance! The man wanted to bang you like a screen door in a hurricane from _day one_.”

“_RERE._”

“Those details were rather tame compared to what Urianger and Y’shtola have been telling me of Thancred’s escapades,” Ryne said serenely, though her smile was mischievous. “He’s been turning redder than you, Synnove.”

Synnove groaned again.

“And,” said Rereha, suddenly solemn, “I made a promise: no leaving the story half-finished. Not anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost feel a little bad being so mean to Alphy this fill and the first, but _my god_ I could not stand him in ARR.
> 
> Also, how to cut out four quests: get you a carbuncle with a nose better than a bloodhound's!
> 
> Also Aymeric eventually turned down the smolder and these two quickly devolved into the disgusting nerds as seen in last year's _Chance Encounters,_ but Synnove really doesn't have room to blush, she was thinking dirty thoughts about Aymeric just as much as he was of her. :3


	5. Poor Impulses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 4: Shifting Blame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187499351526/) on September 4, 2019.

** _“REREHA REHA.”_ **

“Holy fucking shite, how did she do that to her voice,” Rereha gasped out between breaths as she ran hell for leather down one of the rickety side streets of Limsa Lominsa. That echoing reverb was the kind of nonsense voidsent pulled at peak edgy nonsense.

She _really_ should not have tempted fate by trying to sneak some of the kunafa Aunt Angharad had sent her niece _while_ the box was still in Synnove’s office _with Synnove_. Gods all damnit, though, Rereha was a weak woman, and Angharad Greywolfe made her kunafa with clotted cream and rosewater syrup and a heaping pile of crushed pistachios on top. What the fuck was she supposed to do, _not_ eat any?! _That_ would have been a sin, and sure, Rereha was a damn fine sinner otherwise, but not when it came to Angharad Greywolfe’s baking.

(Never mind that it was Synnove’s absolute _favorite_ Ala Mhigan dessert—which was saying something, considering her general weakness for the treats of her childhood—and not even Galette was fool enough to eat without asking, first. Synnove was possessive of her aunt’s sweet treats to an almost frightening degree.

…All right, there was no “almost” about it.)

Rere veered left—and bounced right off Tyr. She swore and tried to scramble back to her feet to continue her attempted escape, but Tyr was faster and he _pounced_. Rereha went back down with a breathless scream of frustration, most of the air knocked from her lungs, and was picked up by the back of her shirt by Synnove’s Goodest Boy. She kicked her feet uselessly.

“I am gonna _diiiiiiiiiiie,_” she whined as the giant carbuncle carried her back to Mealvaan’s Gate.

Tyr _boof_ed his agreement. The sound rattled all the teeth in her head, then moved down her body to ring through every bone in her body, ending with her toes. Gods, that would never stop being slightly unsettling.

Rereha slumped and crossed her arms, scowling as Tyr carried her at a sedate trot, down the streets of Limsa Lominsa, receiving only a few cursory looks from the locals and Yellowjackets, through the main entrance of the Arcanists’ Guild (where they got the most stares, from the merchants conducting business with the customs agents who had never before seen Guild nonsense at its peak), and finally up one of the towers to Synnove’s office on the top floor. The carbuncle pushed the door open with his shoulder, stepped inside, then closed the door with one of his back legs. He set down Rere in front of Synnove’s desk, and sat back, ears pricked.

Synnove got up from her chair and walked around the desk, leaning down to bury her fingers in his ruff and give his neck a good scritching. “Aw, who’s the goodest boy,” she crooned.

Tyr _boof_ed happily.

Then Synnove stood up straight and turned to look down at Rereha, and Rereha felt what little remained of her soul shrivel up and die. Holy _fuck_ Synnove was mad. That was _I beat the shade of Nael van Darnus back to death with my grimoire and I’m ready to do it again_ levels of mad.

That was about when she noticed Heron and Alakhai snickering in the corner with Halulu at her.

Oh. _Oh,_ those backstabbing hypocrites wanted to play that game?

_Fuck it._

Rereha threw back her head and yelled, “Alakhai ate your baklava!”

“You _snitch!_” Alakhai hissed, before quailing and scrambling to try and hide behind Heron as Synnove turned the force of her displeasure on the Xaela.

“Heron was the one who took three slices of revani when Aunt Angharad sent it last time!”

Heron gasped, outraged, but she didn’t deny it even as she shrank back from the growling Highlander.

“Halulu ate your qatayef!” Rereha pointed to the tonberry, who dove to cower behind a chair. “Thubyrgeim your tulumba! Greintoum from the aetherochem department the pancove! Thancred stole your rahat! _Ivar the halva!_” Ivar screeched from the top of one of the bookshelves, flattening himself into a pancake to try and make himself into less of an obvious target

As Synnove started advancing on the others, murder in her eyes, Rereha raised up her arms and bellowed,_ “IF I AM GOING DOWN, I AM TAKING ALL OF YOU WITH ME!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Desserts are serious, yo.


	6. Fifth Invocation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 5: Vault

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187536401831/) on September 5, 2019.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t be helping them?”

Synnove examined her nails critically, frowning thoughtfully, before fishing an emery board from one of her many hip pouches. She smoothed a rough edge only she could see. “Absolutely,” she said, voice icy.

Rereha looked up from shoveling and scowled at her over the rim of the hole she, Heron, and Alakhai were in the process of digging. “Rude.”

“_Kunafa,_” Synnove hissed.

Rereha yelped and ducked back down, shoveling faster than before. Aymeric managed to disguise his laugh as a cough as Synnove muttered about food thieves next to him.

A ‘thunk!’ echoed out of the hole. “Found it,” Alakhai’s voice drifted up.

After another few minutes of digging to clear the object, Synnove and Aymeric stepped back as Heron and Alakhai heaved an ironwood chest over the lip of the hole and shoved it onto flat ground. Rereha clambered out last, grumbling about needing a manicure, stomping towards the chocobos and dragging all three shovels behind her. As she collapsed the handles and stashed them with their travel packs, Alakhai took out her thieves’ tools and started checking the chest for traps.

Heron dusted herself off and strapped her sword belt back on, then picked up her shield from where it was leaning against a boulder, sliding it onto her arm. “Twelve, let this one finally give us a portal,” she groused.

Alakhai grunted agreement as she worked.

Aymeric wrapped an arm around Synnove’s waist, the Highlander leaning into his side automatically. The pair of them both ignored Rereha’s gagging noise behind them. “Where exactly do these chests come from?” Aymeric said. “I recall towards the end of the Dragonsong War that there seemed to be a surprising amount of successful treasure hunting adventurers throughout Coerthas and Dravania for such a supposedly rare occurrence.”

“Current working theory in the Adventurers’ Guild is there’s some supposed legendary thief who’s left breadcrumbs to their hoard of unimaginable wealth,” Synnove said, dropping her head onto his travel-leather covered shoulder. “It…doesn’t seem entirely implausible at this point. Considering how often the maps lead us back to the same spots and there’s always a new chest, someone has to be either physically reburying chests or has a very sophisticated teleportation spell system that automatically ‘refills’ a location.”

Aymeric rested his chin on her head and drawled, “And if it’s the later, you want it.”

“I want it _baaaaaad._”

“That’s what she said,” Rereha muttered as she rejoined them. She leaped out of the way of the kick Synnove aimed at her, throwing up both her middle fingers and smirking as Synnove growled. Aymeric snickered into Synnove’s hair despite himself.

Alakhai, meanwhile, stood up and stashed her tools in her belt. “Chest is clear,” she said. “Just one of those scent traps to lure in the local wildlife.”

“All right, let’s be disappointed,” Rereha said, throwing up her arms in faux excitement.

The Xaela snorted, and popped the lid. Almost immediately, a dark, circular portal ripped into existence above the open lid.

“_Finally!_” the four woman all shouted. Aymeric laughed.

Alakhai quickly rifled through the chest. “Tomestones, of course. I swear, whoever this thief is, they must be working with—”

“Don’t say the name!”

“—Rowena.”

Rereha, Heron, and Synnove all shuddered; Aymeric hugged Synnove a little closer as she muttered about under her breath about how terrifying that woman was.

Alakhai ignored them all, merely adding, “And some gil, just add that to the pile for later.”

Heron whistled, and the chocobos all came over to settle in next to the chest, on guard for any opportunistic looters. Synnove reluctantly pulled free of Aymeric to help gather the potions and a large assortment of empty bags from the packs.

Once they were ready, Alakhai stood in front of the portal. She rolled her neck, cracking her vertebrae that had them all wincing, including the chocobos.

“I know it doesn’t need repeating, but I’d rather not fall out of the habit,” Alakhai said. Then, continuing in the monotonous, bored drone of someone who had delivered the spiel too many to counts: “Today’s attempt at treasure is on behalf of the Arcanists’ Guild scholarship funds. All proceeds and profits from items found and then sold on the market go to finance the educational opportunities of Eorzea’s finest minds, et cetera, et cetera.”

“The amount of people who don’t read the posted message in full is depressing,” Synnove muttered.

“If you do not agree to these terms and conditions, you are free to leave at your leisure.”

No one spoke or otherwise moved. Aymeric’s expression was faintly amused, while the other three Warriors of Light all made ‘get on with it’ gestures.

Alakhai rolled her eyes and reached towards the portal, channeling her aether into it. The group of five vanished…

…with the portal teleporting them to the platform in the middle of a room covered in gaudy Thavnairian iconography and statuary.

“Yes!” Rereha said, raising her fists in victory. “The Shifting Altars!”

Synnove snapped her fingers, and all three of the carbuncles tumbled out of the aether. They sniffed around curiously—Galette and Tyr headbutting everyone’s shins (Galette) or hips (Tyr) and receiving a scritch in return, while Ivar glommed on Synnove—before settling around the arcane sphere floating gently near the inner circle of the platform, with Heron heading towards the immediate center, sword drawn and shield at the ready.

Rereha clapped her hands excitedly. “All right, explanation for our guest,” she said cheerfully. “You’ll notice this platform is surrounded by what’s basically a roulette ring.”

“Bit hard to miss,” Aymeric said drily.

“You’d be surprised,” Alakhai muttered.

“Touching the arcane sphere over yonder activates the ring,” Rereha continued. “Big ol’ aetheric light spins about and lands on one of the icons. Blue icon is a lesser summon; green a greater summon; red an elder summon; gold brings some…_special_ friends; purple is an atomos that will throw us out of the Altars, or maybe not; and white… we’ve got no idea. We’ve never seen the wheel land on it. In any event, we do this five times, at least if an atomos doesn’t do terrible, terrible things to us, with the icons changing up after every round, then we get teleported out of here and whichever madman maintains this setup resets it for the next group of lunatic adventurers.”

“Summons are always some large monster, and they inevitably will bring some of their _friends_ in the middle of the fight,” Heron called out. “Tyr will normally corral them for us, but sometimes it gets hectic; if you could help him on that?”

Aymeric saluted her, unsheathing Naegling from his hip.

“Alakhai, when you’re ready!”

The Xaela waved to Heron and waded her way through the carbuncles to the sphere. “Going on three!” she called out, lifting her hand to begin channeling aether.

“Three! Two! One!”

The next bell of combat was an exercise in carefully controlled chaos: avoiding spells, ducking tails, dodging claws, tossing potions to one another to consume, and herding smaller monsters out of the way to be dealt with methodically. Aymeric, thankfully, had accompanied them on bounty hunting expeditions before, so while he didn’t possess the Echo, he unhesitatingly moved where directed by Synnove or Heron as their own Echoes alerted them of incoming danger and necessitated a change in tactics. (He also had the best sense for where to throw Ivar so the ruby carbuncle and his grenade programming could cause the maximum amount of damage.) In between bouts of combat, Synnove and Rereha looted the treasure chests that teleported to the center of the platform, shoving gil into their rapidly-filling bags along with bars of assorted metals, bolts of cloth, and bottles of liquid they identified as components for enhancing specific magical properties on armor; Rereha also kept a list of their growing inventory of treasure, jotting down amounts and speculations on how to price them for resale.

“Papa makes a _killing_ on dissolvents alone,” said Rereha absently. “The crafting guilds always need more, never mind the independent craftsmen.”

One particular item they found was a piece of fine linen that had Galette immediately making sad eyes at Synnove.

She sighed. “All right, sweetheart, you can have it. A scarf, maybe?”

Galette yipped excitedly as Synnove folded the bolt up and shoved it into one of her hip pouches. _Yes, please!_

And the once the loot was dealt with, onto the next round of battle.

(Aymeric _stared_ at the enormous mandragora the gold icon summoned for them on the third round. “That,” he said, “is absolutely ridiculous.”

“And annoying,” Synnove said with a sigh. “He brings along a matching crew that _have_ to be brought down in a specific order or it gets…ugly. Mostly because Rere gets upset about the missed opportunity for loot.”

“The vases are adorable and Mama wants a full set for Starlight!”

Synnove ignored her. “At least this time it wasn’t the enormous golden namazu and his damned pitchfork.”

“Oh, now I _know_ you’re having me on, love.”)

Finally, they made it through four invocations. Synnove stared critically as the roulette wheel around them reset to only three types of icons: red, purple, and white. “This is either going to be very disappointing or very ugly,” she said.

Heron said with a shrug, “At least we didn’t get an atomos before this point; if we get one now, it wouldn’t have been all for naught.”

“Spit, not swallow.” The phrase was said in a high-pitched sing-song.

“**_REREHA!_**” three voices bellowed. Aymeric choked in surprise, laughing through a cough as Synnove pounded him on the back, scowling at the lalafell as she did. Rereha merely cackled.

Alakhai aimed a kick at Rereha as she headed back for the arcane sphere; Rereha, of course, danced out of the way with an especially ostentatious twirl. “All right,” the Xaela said, “let’s get this over with, I want a nap.”

The circle of aether light cheerfully clicked around the ring for the last time. It began to slow, before calming to a halt on the purple atomos icon. The group all held their breath.

Then it clicked over to the white elephant icon, and activated.

“Oh, my gods, we are gonna die and it’s gonna be ugly,” Rereha said, wide eyed.

Black aether began coalescing at the middle of the platform, bubbling and swirling like a living thing, and the entire room lit up with golden light. The shadowy aether roared upwards, nearly to the high arched ceiling of the Altar, then collapsed downward. The five readied themselves, weapons drawn, with the carbuncles crouching to pounce. And as the aether dissipiated—

—a grey matanga stood in the very middle. He was _tiny_ for a matanga, roughly Synnove’s height though perhaps a bit shorter, with the proportions of a child to match. His tusks were very short, barely curling upwards on either side of his tiny trunk, while his head was nearly twice the size of the rest of his body, and his enormous ears twitched as he looked around in bewilderment.

“What?!” he said, then blinked huge black eyes. “Oh, a summoning! I’ve never done this before!” He clapped his round hands excitedly, trunk curling in obvious delight.

Synnove _gurgled,_ grimoire dropping to the ground as she clutched her chest with both hands. “Oh no,” she wheezed, “he’s _fucking adorable._”

“Synnove, you will _control yourself,_” Alakhai hissed back.

“You’ve come for treasure, yes?” the matanga prince squeaked out, apparently not hearing the exchange. “Then treasure you shall ha—HRK!”

There was now a Highlander attached to the young creature, hugging the life out of him and cooing excitedly. “You’re so _CUTE!_” she cried.

The matanga blinked. “Thank…you?”

Ivar sat back on his haunches, paws covering his eyes, and chattered out a groan. _Mama is so embarrassing._

Galette and Tyr nodded agreement.

Aymeric, Naegling now sheathed at his side, inched closer, until he finally came up next to Synnove. He placed his hands on her shoulders and tugged back gently. “Now, dear,” he said, as Synnove sniffled back overwhelmed tears, “it’s a bit rude to hug a stranger unaware and without permission.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine!” the matanga said. “This feels really nice! You give very good hugs, miss!”

Synnove made that horrible gurgling sound again. Aymeric sighed quietly, hanging his head.

Rereha put her hand in her hands as Heron rubbed her temples. Alakhai merely looked up, as if she was beseeching the gods or the Mothercrystal herself, mouthing, _Why. Why this._

Aymeric rubbed Synnove’s shoulders soothingly, and finally tried again to get her to loosen her grip on the little matanga. “I’m sure the younger master needs to go,” he said to her, tone as reasonable and gentle as he could make it. “If this is his first chance to answer an adventurer’s summons, his parents are likely wondering why it’s taking so long.”

“I’m sorry!” the prince said sadly, carefully patting Synnove’s arm. “I really do need to return home.”

She sniffled again, _hard_, but reluctantly drew back, dropping her arms and standing upright, and let Aymeric shuffle her a few paces away.

The matanga prince waved. “Bye, miss! Thank you for the hug!”

Synnove waved sadly in return, and the little matanga vanished in a pop of aether, leaving behind a large treasure chest. She sniffed and turned to drop her head on Aymeric’s chest as Rereha darted towards the chest and threw it open with a triumphant whoop. “He was so precious,” she said, voice wobbly with unshed tears.

Aymeric hugged her. “Yes, he was,” he said, patting her back soothingly. Synnove wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed back.

Another sniff. “Aymeric?”

“No, love.”

“Damnit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really love the Shifting Altar of Uznair, it goes so much faster than Lost and Hidden Canals (and Aquapolis). Still don't have either the golden namazu or hedgehoglet minions, though. *pout*
> 
> Also, "spit, not swallow," is in fact the chant _I_ started during FC map runs every time we got an Atomos in Shifting Altar. :D I broke people, it was awesome.


	7. Strict Proof Eternal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 6: First Steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187545458811/) on September 6, 2019.

Synnove fidgeted with her hands in her lap, shoulders hunched as she sat in Professor Mhaslona Fhilfhiswyn’s office near the top of the northeast tower of Mealvaan’s Gate. The aetherophysics professor was carefully paging through the grimoire Synnove had made for herself, finished just that morning, the binding still tight and the brass clasps gleaming with polish. The arrays for _Ruin,_ _Miasma,_ _Bio, Physick,_ and other spells had all received a perfunctory nod of approval, but the Sea Wolf had frowned when she had gotten to the pages set aside for summoning a carbuncle.

Perhaps dedicating half the grimoire to the two-dimensional representation of an emerald carbuncle array was a bit much?

Synnove forcibly stopped herself from picking at her cuticles. She was trying to break that habit since she didn’t have the excuse any more of the manicures Rereha had treated them all to once a moon.

Professor Fhilfhiswyn tapped the page before her. “What’s this?”

Synnove sat up and leaned over. Page six of thirty dedicated to the internal functions and processing capabilities of the carbuncle, and the professor was pointing to a specific set of equations and coding. Oh, no, she had spent so long on that part, had she done something wrong?

“Oh, um,” she said, “that’s an algorithm for self-improvement and organic learning.”

Professor Fhilfhiswyn stared at her long enough that Synnove couldn’t help but start fidgeting again, dropping her eyes. Finally, the professor said, voice flat, “Artificial intelligence.”

“…Yes?”

“Why?”

Synnove sat up, blinking, and met the professor’s gaze. “Well…why not? Carbuncles are composed of _living_ aether, so the capacity for intelligent, exponential growth should be possible. Learning, rather than programming.”

The professor blinked slowly, humming what Synnove thought was in a thoughtful manner, and returned her attention to the grimoire, turning the page. Synnove sat back and again resisted the urge to pick at her nails. Instead, she laced her fingers together and refolded her hands in her lap.

After the pages on internal functionality and processing, there was the section—ten pages—on mapping living aether into a physical form. Shape, mass, texture; most of these were the standard array pieces, with only some minor, mostly cosmetic, modifications. (A carbuncle should be _properly_ fluffy.) After that, twenty pages carefully detailing how the living aether would be channeled into the basic offensive spells for an emerald carbuncle, _Gust_ and _Downburst_, with room to one day add more if necessary. And, finally, five pages laying out how to link the living aether of the emerald with Synnove’s own, using it as the catalyst to tie all the previous arrays together, and bring the carbuncle into the physical world.

Professor Fhilfhiswyn closed the grimoire and slid it across the desk to Synnove. As she did, she asked, “What resources did you use when creating the carbuncle arrays?”

Synnove took the grimoire, holding it to her chest and chewing her lower lip before responding. “Um, I looked at the standard array the Guild provides to get a sense of where I should begin, but other than I just…did what felt best. I know that’s not very scientific—”

“You made these _from scratch._” Disbelief colored the professor’s voice, but she wasn’t focusing on the lack of an approach properly grounded in scientific principles. So, that was…good? Maybe?

“…Yes?”

“Did you ask anyone for assistance?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, I wanted to see what I could do on my own. Um. Did I…did I make a mistake somewhere?” She felt her shoulders start to hunch inward again and forced herself to sit up straight, even if it was difficult meeting Professor Fhilfhiswyn’s eyes.

The professor hadn’t stopped staring at her. “No,” she said, after a long, tense silence. “No, you didn’t. Those arrays are, theoretically, perfect, in both the drawing and the execution.”

Synnove couldn’t help it: she _beamed._ If Professor Fhilfhiswyn said they were perfect, then they were perfect. She couldn’t wait to write Auntie and Rereha and Heron about this! And she’d done everything freehand, too!

“May I see the emerald you’re using as the focus?” the professor said. It sounded like she was struggling to keep her voice even.

(…Maybe she wouldn’t mention to Professor Fhilfhiswyn just yet that she _had_ drawn all the arrays, including all the circles, freehand. That tended to make the mathematics professors a little sweary.)

“Certainly, ma’am,” Synnove said. She reached into the pouch of accoutrements she kept on her belt, feeling around for a few moments. Where did it—ah, there it was!

She palmed the stone, pulling it from the depths of her pouch, and held it out to Professor Fhilfhiswyn. The Sea Wolf took it carefully, the stone appearing especially small in her hands, and carefully held it up as she placed a jeweler’s loupe to her eye.

The emerald was a deep, vivid green sphere, a full ilm in diameter. At a first cursory glance, it appeared perfectly round—until it caught the light, as it did now with the sunshine pouring into the professor’s office. It practically blazed with green fire, glittering and brilliant, showing off numerous tiny facets. A small hole had been drilled through the very center, allowing the jewel to eventually be strung on sturdy leather into a bracelet or a necklace.

And the _aether_ that had coalesced around it! To Synnove’s senses, this emerald tasted of the chocolate pudding pie she and some of her classmates had tried at the Bismarck during her second moon at the Guild, the one topped with huge, thick dollops of mint-infused whipped cream that the restaurant only served during the summer moons. And the aether truly _sang,_ a beautiful melody of windchimes and sweet flutes, with a playful violin holding the harmony in the background. As soon as Synnove had picked the raw stone out of the box down in the stockroom, she had known _this_ was the emerald to use for her carbuncle.

“This is marvelously cut,” Professor Fhilfhiswyn said admiringly. “I’d almost think it was Ul’dahn work. Which of the gemcutters did you go to?”

“Oh! Um. I did it myself.”

Synnove thought she heard a cracking noise, the professor whipped her head over so hard and fast to _stare_ at her. Synnove felt her shoulders creep back up to her ears again, but she forced herself to once again hold the Sea Wolf woman’s gaze and said, “Um. My best friend’s mother is a goldsmith, and she frequently let me observe her work when we visited her workshop. And she showed me how to cut gems when I asked.”

Professor Fhilfhiswyn carefully removed the jeweler’s loupe, setting it aside somewhere in the mass of papers on her desk. She returned the emerald to Synnove, who cradled it close in her palm. The professor said, “And you’ve been with the Guild how long, now?”

“Six moons.”

The professor closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose for a count of seven, holding it for another seven. Finally, she breathed out again for another seven count, slumping and shaking her head as she did. She opened her eyes and sat upright, and said, “All right, let’s see you summon that carbuncle.”

“Right now?!”

“No time like the present,” the professor said, pushing herself to her feet.

Synnove scrambled to follow, coming to stand in the empty space between the desk and the door; the office was well lit, just tiny, as the professor preferred to her calculations in the public lecture halls so her students and colleagues could observe. Professor Fhilfhiswyn shoved the desk over to give her as much room as possible, then leaned up against the wall, arms crossed and watching her intently.

Taking a deep breath in an attempt to soothe her nerves—it didn’t work, but as Aunt Angharad said, it was the thought and attempt that counted more—Synnove opened the grimoire and flipped to the page containing the activation key for the carbuncle array that would summon it into existence. She took out her channeling quill with the hand with which she was still palming the emerald (she really needed to get a nice piece of leather or deer hide from one of the storerooms and make herself a proper bracelet), checking to ensure the metal nib wasn’t loose and that the white griffin feather Auntie had sent her to make the quill hadn’t broken. She took another deep breath, this one shaking, and looked up at the professor.

Professor Fhilfhiswyn nodded and made an encouraging gesture.

Synnove pressed the quill to the aetheric ink of the key and began channeling her aether.

The key lit up, and the shadow of an array burst into her life around her, the aether so strong it was visible. Synnove kept the count in her mind—_one, two, three, four, five_—and then a shape, vaguely catlike but bigger, with two long ears and three even longer tails, tumbled into existence, landing with a graceful poise on the floor before her.

The carbuncle looked exactly as all the other emeralds usually did: soft, fluffy fur that almost appeared blue in certain lighting (and that was something that had had arcanists scratching their heads for generations now, why an emerald carbuncle looked almost turquoise, rather than a proper true green), a triangular patch of scarlet between its ears. Its ears were the proper length and twisted to catch every faint sound as it processed its new existence, its trio of tails waving gently. Its eyes were big and round and black, looking around inquisitively, and its black nose twitched as it sniffed the air.

Synnove carefully closed her grimoire, using the channeling quill as a bookmark, latching the book closed and hanging it from the hook on her belt made for just that purpose. She was still holding the emerald focus as she knelt down to the carbuncle’s eye level. “Hi there,” she said softly, holding out her free hand.

The carbuncle looked at her, and yipped happily, the sound oddly tinkling, like crystal windchimes, and gave her fingers a cursory sniff before headbutting her hand. Synnove laughed, and obediently gave the carbuncle a few soft pats. The carbuncle made a little _mya_ sound of delight and then she—and Synnove wasn’t sure how she knew that this carbuncle was a _she_—sat back on her hind legs, tails floofed around her, and reached up with her front paws.

She yipped again. _Uppies, please!_

Synnove would wonder later how she knew that _that_ was what the carbuncle had said. She would wonder later how the carbuncle seemed to be _talking._

Back in the present, Synnove cooed, “Oh, aren’t you just a darling.” She reached over, carefully picking up the carbuncle and bringing her to her chest as she stood upright, bouncing the carbuncle once to ensure she had a good grip. The carbuncle chittered happily, snuggling in close to her neck, and started up a soft, chiming purr.

Professor Fhilfhiswyn clapped her hands together. Synnove jumped, having forgotten the Sea Wolf was there, and turned to her with wide eyes.

“You’re changing your focus of study,” the professor said. “From mathematics to aetherophysics.”

“I am?”

“Yes. Who’s your advisor?”

Synnove blinked and thought quickly. “Um. I guess, _you,_ now?”

“Correct. You, my dear,” said Professor Fhilfhiswyn, putting her hands on her hips, “might be a mathematics genius, but you are _wasted_ on just doing geometric proofs for the rest of your career. You, Synnove Greywolfe? You have _talent,_ and I’ll not see it squandered.”

Synnove had been told she was talented before, by her tutors, by Aunt Angharad. This time, though, and for the first time, she _believed_ it.

Her emerald carbuncle purred in delight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a special note, Synnove is about fifteen/sixteen in this. Heron and Rereha and Aunt Angharad did a lot to improve her confidence over the years, but at this stage in her life she still falls back into shier habits when she's unsure of herself. Professor Mhaslona Fhilfhiswyn puts the last of that steel in her spine we all know and love. :D


	8. Absolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 7: Forgiven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187567054031/) on September 7, 2019.
> 
> Spoilers for Shadowbringers MSQ through the level 79 quest _The Unbroken Thread._

Synnove had never felt the weight of the world on her shoulders as keenly as she did when Urianger knelt before her and her fellow Warriors of Light. Sorrow and resignation dug deep furrows into the elezen’s face.

“I offer no excuses,” he said. Synnove wasn’t sure she had ever heard him so tired and defeated, so worn down by fate, not even after Moenbryda’s death all those years ago. “When I agreed to aid the Exarch with his plans ‘twas in full acceptance of the condemnation I would face when my duplicity was laid bare.”

Urianger sighed, head bowed momentarily, before meeting her eyes again. Quietly, he said to them all, “…Yet it is not rancor but resolve that I sense in you. Ye are fully intent upon walking thy path to its end, are you not?”

“Ask a stupid question,” Rereha griped, arms crossed as she scowled at him. Urianger quirked the smallest of smiles and inclined his head to her in acknowledgment.

“If ye canst forgive my deception—or, failing that, set aside your displeasure for a time—I do beg leave to follow you,” he continued. “What strength and wisdom I possess are yours to command.”

The pulse of primordial Light inside her was a cacophony of glass shards grinding against one another, of cracking porcelain, of _nails on chalkboard._ It tasted of salt and charred gristle and the awful, over-boiled porridge she and her family and all the refugees had consumed in the flight from Ala Mhigo and Gyr Abania into the Black Shroud and eventually on to Thanalan. But more than the affront to her senses, the Light _hungered_: to consume her, and her friends, and all the poor, damned souls clinging to hope on the First for a better future and the chance to see the spangled stars of the sunless sea once more.

Synnove bent over, grabbing Urianger by his upper arms, and hauled him to his feet with barely any effort, for all that she was a head shorter than him. As she did so, she said, “Oh, get up you daft, maudlin fool.” Once the elezen was upright, shocked gaze briefly meeting her resolute one, she wrapped her arms around his torso in the tightest hug she could, resting her forehead on his sternum. Urianger startled at the contact, as tense as one of Rereha’s bowstrings, before he minutely relaxed and brought his own arms up to hesitantly return the hug.

“Of course I forgive you, you too-smart idiot,” Synnove said, voice slightly muffled by his robes. “I’m not entirely _happy,_ but I understand why you made that choice. And, to be quite honest, most of my ire is at the Exarch for putting you in this situation in the first place. He shouldn’t have put that burden on you alone.”

Behind her, she felt Heron come up, and wrap the both of them up in her own bear hug, nearly lifting the both of them off their feet. “The problem, I believe,” the Hellsguard woman said, “is that _heroic sacrifice_ has become such a default that it becomes difficult to see another solution.”

“Particularly when it’s the fate of multiple worlds on the line,” Alakhai said, wiggling her way into the hug between Synnove and Heron to mash up against Urianger. The elezen obligingly lifted his elbow so the Xaela could duck under it. “Though, honestly, ‘saving one would be saving none.’ G’raha clearly wasn’t listening to the stories if he forgot that we _always_ pull off the impossible.”

Synnove felt Tyr leaning into her thigh, and Galette and Ivar huddled on her feet and Urianger’s. Then Rereha was hugging her waist with one arm, the other likely around Urianger—no doubt the lalafell was standing on Tyr’s back so she could reach. “You’re a dumbass, Urianger,” Rere said fondly, “but you’re _our_ dumbass.”

The elezen laughed, the sound of it more than a little watery and broken. “As blunt as ever,” he said, “but as callous as they are, thy words ever serve as a balm to the soul, Rereha.”

Synnove sighed heavily, patting Urianger gently on the back. “This is a shite situation,” she said. “I’m not sure how we’re going to get out of it. But we’ll manage. We always do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as soon as we got this scene in Shadowbringers, I knew I was eventually going to write it _my_ way, as you see here. Honestly the hardest part was "translating" Urianger's archaic speech from singular to plural.
> 
> <strike>And yes, in case it wasn't obvious, I thought the Exarch's plan as shared in that Echo flashback really stupid. And, as Emet-Selch showed, easily made fallible.</strike>


	9. Tonk!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 8: Free Write | Leisure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187586499881/) on September 8, 2019.
> 
> Mild Shadowbringers MSQ spoilers within.

“Tonk!” Rereha crowed, slapping down her cards. Five face cards—the knight of swords, the king of cups, the queen of coins, the knight of clubs, and the queen of clubs—lay on the table.

“Bullshite,” Ardbert and Alakhai chorused, as Synnove scowled and Heron leveled her _I’m disappointed in you_ look on the lalafell.

Rereha spread her hands, grinning like a coeurl who had gotten the cream and the canary (but very pointedly did not look at Heron). “Now, now, fair’s fair, and that’s a double payout, isn’t it? Twenty pieces of candied pecans.” She made grabby hands at their piles of snack foods.

“You’re wearing a long-sleeved shirt,” Ardbert said, crossing his arms. “I’m dead, not blind, and you _absolutely_ dealt yourself those court cards. No payout.”

Rereha’s whining was drowned out by the vindictive laughter of the other three women, and eventually she was banished to her Pendants suite to change into a shirt she couldn’t hide cards in.

Once she had returned to Heron’s room, the Hellsguard woman handed the deck of cards to Alakhai. With her sleeves pointedly rolled up past her elbows—the same as Heron and Synnove—the Xaela neatly split the deck into two equal piles and riffled them, the cards cascading neatly into her hands. Then she did an overhand shuffle, and with a flick of her wrist, split the deck in two again, but this time she managed it one-handed, before weaving the two halves back together.

“Show off,” the other four Warriors of Light said.

Alakhai grinned toothily at them, did another riffle shuffle, and dealt the cards: five each to herself, Heron, Rereha, and the duo of Ardbert and Synnove, alternating among them until they had full hands. She set the deck in the middle of the table, and drew the top card—the five of coins—to create the discard pile next to the draw.

The women each picked up their cards; Synnove leaned to the side so Ardbert could get a better look at their hand.

King of coins, ten of clubs, eight of clubs, five of swords, ace of coins. Ardbert wrinkled his nose; thirty-four, so no tonk. High point value, too, but they could work with this.

He looked around at the others: Heron was thoughtful; Alakhai blank; and Rereha outright furious. None of them made a movement otherwise, so they hadn’t gotten tonk, either (and Rereha must have either had a high point value like he did, be close to a legitimate tonk, or both, with an expression like _that_). He nudged Synnove with an elbow, though he didn’t look at her; she nudged him back.

Oh, they absolutely had this.

Heron, sitting to the dealer’s right, began the round and drew a card from the deck. She hummed thoughtfully, placing it in her hand, and discarded the queen of cups.

Rereha went next, and her scowl deepened before she added it to her hand and threw down the knight of swords into the discards.

Then it was Synnove’s turn, and she drew the two of coins. Ardbert pointed at the king of coins, and Synnove obediently added it to the discard pile after sliding the two of coins into their hand.

Alakhai finished the round uneventfully, discarding a nine of cups, and the next round began. Heron and Rereha made their choices quickly, with the latter tossing the nine of clubs into the discard pile.

Ardbert kept his grin off his face, but barely, and tapped his finger next to the discard pile. Synnove obediently grabbed the card, then set it down on the table before them with the ten of clubs and eight of clubs, and discarded the five of swords. Only two cards remained in their hand, now.

Rereha glared, expression full of venom. Heron rolled her eyes, while Alakhai sighed heavily. Synnove and Ardbert merely blinked at them, radiating faux innocence.

Alakhai’s turn and the start of the third round were played grudgingly; they all knew what was coming, though Heron added the seven of clubs to Ardbert’s run, leaving her with four cards, for all the good it would do her. And they started groaning—Rereha’s head thunked down on the table for emphasis—when Synnove and Ardbert gave them all matching grins of satisfaction at the start of their turn.

“Going down with three,” Synnove said, sing-song, as she laid down the two of coins and ace of coins.

“Fuck you both,” Heron said without heat, leaning back in her chair.

“Luck of the dead,” Ardbert said smugly, and ducked the smack Alakhai aimed for the back of his head. She kicked his shin instead, _hard,_ and he grunted.

Synnove made a ‘hand it over’ gesture. “Pecans, please, ladies,” she said.

Rereha threw one at her; Synnove caught it in her mouth, chewing loudly in an exaggerated manner as the lalafell made a disgusted noise. Ardbert threw back his head and laughed.

The next few games went rounds longer than the first one did, though they passed quickly, with the group switching dealers with each new game—and staring at Rereha like a quartet of silently judging lanner falcons while she was the one shuffling the deck. (“I’m hurt, genuinely hurt, by your lack of trust.” “Keep your hands where we can see them, Reha.”) The Warriors of Light of Eorzea had picked up Ardbert’s favorite card game with a ruthless sort of hunger he recognized in fellow adventurers who liked learning something _new._ He remembered himself and Renda-Rae reacting the same way to Triple Triad, though Tonk remained their favorite since it could be played with multiple people. Adventurers—and soldiers, come to think of it—needed to find _some_ way to pass the time between bouts of life-threatening danger, after all.

Now that the tension had been broken with the first game, too, they had devolved into idle chattering and sharing stories as they played. Ardbert was in the middle of describing a mission he and his friends had accepted to rescue a duke’s daughter in one of the lands swallowed by the Flood, petting Ivar sprawled in his lap as he told the story—“Honestly, it ended up being the easiest job we’d had in moons; we were halfway up the tower when we met Lady Wilhelmina coming down, and she nearly brained Branden with that cast-iron skillet of hers!”—when, during Alakhai’s turn, Synnove’s right thumb started ever so slowly ticking over, so that the nail pointed at a specific card.

“Stop helping him,” Alakhai said, seemingly without looking up from her current hand.

Synnove dropped her head to the tabletop with a loud _‘thunk!’_, though her arms were still raised to hold up the cards for Ardbert’s perusal. “I’m sorry!” she whined. “I can’t help it!”

Ardbert stopped petting Ivar to pat her on the head instead. “There, there,” he drawled. “I’m certainly not going to complain about you counting cards on my behalf.”

Rereha threw a pecan at him. He ‘caught’ it in his mouth, though the nut still went through him and ended up on the floor somewhere on the opposite side of the suite.

Heron hummed thoughtfully, drumming her fingers on the table. “I suppose we should play something new so the poor woman who can calculate probabilities in her head can participate,” she said. “Either that or we’ll have to do a four-against-one Triple Triad match.”

“We’d still lose,” Ardbert noted, hefting Ivar up so the carbuncle rested in his arms and scratching beneath his chin. Ivar purred happily.

Alakhai tilted her head. “Well,” she said, “let’s finish this game, then we can perhaps try that strategy board game Rereha picked up from the market. What was it called?”

“_Founders of Tanac,_” Rereha chirped.

“Oh, please hurry up and finish so I can use my brain again,” Synnove said with a desperate groan, leveraging herself upright again with her elbows.

Ardbert shuffled Ivar over so the carbuncle was essentially draped along his arm, then reached up to pat Synnove on the head again. She elbowed him in the ribs in turn. He laughed at her.

Alakhai discarded the six of coins. “How did Lady Wilhelmina get a _skillet_ of all things, by the way?”

“Well, apparently she’d convinced her kidnappers to bring one of her travel chests with them, claiming it contained her finest silks and jewelry,” Ardbert said, resuming his petting of Ivar and leaning back on the bench he shared with Synnove. “Turns out that said chest was in fact the one with the cooking implements she’d just bought at market…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had no idea Tonk was a real game, according to Google--the version here is based off the card game of the same name from Glen Cook's _Black Company_ series (one of my personal favorites, although I still need to read quite a few of the later entries) where the eponymous mercenaries play it in their downtime. The rules of _that_ were formally adapted into a real world playable version by John P. Speno and the folks at the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, and can be found at this link [HERE](https://www.bsfs.org/bsfstonk.htm).
> 
> Also, yes, I did decide Eurogame-style board games are a Thing on the First (probably originated in Eulmore). Rereha's totally bringing those back to the Source.


	10. Finally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 9: Hesitant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187612346401/) on September 9, 2019.

“Now, this time,” the chirurgeon said, tone as icy as a midwinter storm as he finished tying off the bandage, “I expect you to _rest._ That means you are to _stay in bed._ Halone help me, I will have Ser Lucia and Ser Handeloup _bar the door_ if it means keeping you in here. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Yannistand,” Aymeric said. It took most of his willpower to keep from sounding like a meek recruit under the force of the elder man’s glare.

The Temple Knight’s chief chirurgeon sniffed and gathered up his supplies, neatly storing them in his bag before snapping it closed. With one last pointed glare at the Lord Commander, he turned on his heel and strode from his private quarters in a swirl of robes and palpable disdain.

Aymeric let out a quiet breath of relief and gingerly leaned back against the pillows piled behind him. He wasn’t entirely sure where they had all come from; not even his bed back at Borel Manor had so many. The likely suspects were, of course, his own Temple Knights, and he dearly hoped they hadn’t stripped the barracks of _all_ the pillows within it.

He should offer up prayers to the Fury. As Yannistand—and Handeloup, and Lucia, and then Handeloup again, and Lucia a second time, _and_ a third, and then of course Yannistand yet again, with quite a bit fouler language and louder volume than the first time he had—had told him, he had been profoundly lucky. That the assassin’s knife had only _knicked_ one of his internal organs, rather than perforated, firstly. That Count Edmont and Lord Artoirel had been with him when he was attacked, and had managed to keep him from bleeding out on the street before his Knights arrived, secondly. That he had torn only his external stitches, not reopened the internal wounds, during the rescue of the hostages from the Vault, thirdly.

Truly, though, little Maelie was the luckiest of them. If Vidofnir had been even a moment later to arrive…

Aymeric shuddered. No, that did not bear thinking of, either her averted fate or the repercussions should it have come to pass.

He speculatively eyed his nightstand. Lucia had promptly whisked away all of his usual paperwork when Yannistand had hauled him to his room to redo his stitches and redress the wound, with Handeloup a step behind her, depositing a pile of books almost immediately in the paper work's stead. _Leisure_ reading, of course; he recognized more than one pulp novel that had been making the rounds in the barracks.

He was in the processing of reaching for the top book when his linkpearl suddenly chimed. He blinked in confusion; that was Lucia’s line, and she had been adamant that he was to rest and not involve himself in the minutiae of running either the Knights or Ishgard. She had even deliberately removed all of the linkpearls in the cuff save the ones for herself, Handeloup, and the Borel Manor staff.

What could have _already_ gone wrong?

Aymeric picked up the ‘pearl cuff and held it to his ear. “Yes, Lucia?”

“Sir, this is your only warning: there is a very angry arcanist in the Congregation. She’s also, hmm, probably two-thirds of the way to your quarters by now.”

At that point, a loud **_BOOM_** echoed through his quarters: a very, _very_ loud knock on his door, that reminded him of the sound of a bertha cannon firing. “_AYMERIC DE BOREL,_” a very familiar voice roared.

“Oops. I seem to have miscalculated how fast she climbs the stairs.” Lucia was utterly unrepentant. Then, before she cut the connection, her voice came back over the line, oddly sing-song: “Good lu~uck.”

Aymeric lowered his hand, staring at the linkpearl cuff in horrified silence. Lucia had been spending _far_ too much time with Rereha.

The pounding, echoing knocks picked up again. He set the cuff aside and steeled himself, calling, “Come in, Synnove!”

He heard and _felt_ the door burst open and crack against the wall from the force with which Synnove Greywolfe entered his rooms, then slam shut again. Four long, stomping strides and she turned the corner from his tiny receiving parlor (a term mostly used in jest by the Temple Knights) into the bedchamber. Lucia had been understating it: Synnove was _incandescently_ furious, emerald eyes blazing in such a way that he swore they were once more aglow with the Dreadwyrm’s own aether.

“You,” she said, pointing at him with a shaking hand, “are a fucking anxiety-inducing gods-all-damned trouble-seeking _lunatic._”

Her voice had lost the refined, arcanists’ clip many of the assessors of Mealvaan’s Gate picked up during the course of their studies. It was, in fact, very strongly Ala Mhigan, with a not inconsiderable bit of influence from the Vylbrandian accent most Lominsan pirates used. Synnove only spoke in such a manner in fits of strong emotion, as he had had the privilege to experience on a few prior occasions, though he had heard both Alakhai and Dancing Heron call it ‘a horrifying butchering of good language.’

“You damned bloody fool, going into battle with a fucking _gut wound_ that was _still healing!_ What in the _HELLS_ were you thinking?!”

Were it coming from anyone else, such an accent _would_ probably sound quite horrible, if not entirely incomprehensible. But from Synnove, when she spoke it from passionate anger or laughing to the point of tears or the very depths of heartfelt sorrow? How it could be anything other than wonderful?

Synnove was advancing on him, still yelling and cursing and insulting him (and yet to repeat herself, though she avoided any mentions of legitimacy or the lack thereof), until she was leaning over him and had her forefinger practically in his face. Were he any other man, who did not feel what he felt for this marvelous, brilliant woman, he might have quailed be being the focus of her rage. He had fought by her side in the Vault, however, and he knew what she looked like when her rage was aimed at someone whom she hated, for whom she felt disgust, as she did towards the terrorists who had thought to spill innocent blood in their blind zealotry.

This was anger born of _worry,_ of fear, of not knowing if a loved one was hurt beyond saving. It was the anger of relief, the anger of pent up emotion that desperately needed an outlet—and a raised, shaking voice was all that would do.

Perhaps being three times lucky under Halone’s watchful gaze meant it was time to cease denying what was between them.

Aymeric reached up, gently grasping Synnove’s wrist, and brought her hand closer to himself; she stopped mid-rant, startled despite herself. He kissed the tip of her finger; her knuckles; the back of her hand; her palm, after turning over her hand. Synnove stared at him, dropping her gaze to stare at her hand as he kissed it, before slowly raising her eyes to meet his own. Her pupils had widened in shock, but he’d known her long enough by now to also know she wasn’t angry. Not at this. He smiled up at her and let everything he felt for her shine forth.

Synnove stared at him for another three heartbeats, then said, “Ah, to hells with it,” grasped his face in her hands, and kissed him.

He couldn’t help it—he grinned, laughing quietly against her lips. They were warm and only slightly chapped—she hadn’t been wearing that gloss of late, the one she had used to combat the cold, dry Coerthan air during her stay at Fortemps Manor—but it was far and away better than anything he had ever dreamed. He could not ask for a better first kiss, sweet and chaste and full of mutual adoration. She chuckled as well, the sound vibrating through him pleasantly, before she drew back and rested her forehead against his.

“You’re still an idiotic fool for that stunt,” Synnove said, but the grin she wore took the bite from her words, as did the way she brushed his cheeks with her thumbs.

Aymeric cupped her face in his own hands, smiling. “So I have heard from many people today.” He tilted his head to brush another kiss against her lips, and murmured, “I love you, Synnove Greywolfe.”

A blush stained her cheeks, making the grey clan tattoos stand out, and she beamed at him. “I love you, too, Aymeric de Borel.”

He felt a pleased flush cross his own features and grinned back. They stayed that way for long moments, smiling and exchanging pecking kisses and basking in one another’s presence.

“All right,” she said eventually, drawing back to make a shooing motion with her hands at him, “budge over, I want to cuddle.”

Aymeric laughed, but did as requested, carefully moving sideways until there was room for Synnove on the bed next to him. She kicked her boots off—how she managed that with thigh boots he hoped to find out one day—and shucked her archaeoskin jacket, tossing it onto a chair, then crawled under the covers next to him, pressing up against his side while he wrapped an arm around her waist. She dropped her head on his shoulder and sighed heavily.

“Please don’t do something so foolish again, Aymeric,” she whispered. “I know it’s the pot calling the kettle black, but…” She bit her lower lip, gaze dropping to their laps. “Call me selfish, but I’d quite like to keep you, if you’d let me.”

He kissed her forehead, then nuzzled into her hair. “While I can’t make promises, as serving as Lord Commander means I will have to continue to put myself on the frontlines,” he said, “I will do my best to be less…impulsive, going forward.”

Synnove sighed again. “That’s the best I can ask.”

“And you’re welcome to keep me, so long as I get to keep you in turn.”

She grinned and hugged him around his torso, careful to avoid his bandaged stomach. “That was never in question, my love.”

Aymeric beamed fit to burst at the endearment.

At that moment, three faces peered over the edge of the bed, yipping a question in unison. Aymeric raised an eyebrow at the sight; Tyr _had_ to be laying flat on his stomach to be matching the angle at which his siblings held their heads. He looked at Synnove. “Well, I have no objections,” he said.

“Oh good,” she replied. “We’re all four of us a package deal, after all.”

He gave her another kiss, as sweet as the first, but lingering and a little hungrier, and pointedly ignored Ivar’s growling. When they drew back, he said, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Galette crawled up first, shamelessly walking over Synnove without care of where she put her paws, to Synnove’s exasperated mutterings, so she could haul herself up around Aymeric’s shoulders and settle about his neck. Tyr scrambled up at the same time as Ivar; the giant topaz carbuncle loafed on both their legs, and started up a deep, brassy purr that rumbled through their bones. Ivar, meanwhile, stalked over to Synnove, turning in a circle on her thighs three times before curling up in a tight ball in her lap, ears pinned flat to his head as he glared up at Aymeric. (Synnove and Aymeric both ignored his sulking.) With the carbuncles settled, Synnove leaned over to the nightstand, retrieving the novel Aymeric had been eyeing before her arrival, and snuggled down into the pile.

“Your Knights have awful taste in literature,” she said, examining the cover with a raised brow, but flipped open the book.

“Now that is truly the pot calling the kettle black,” Aymeric said, pushing Galette’s tails aside so they didn’t smother him. “I remember you complaining about the drivel the first-year arcanists were obsessing over last semester.”

Synnove snickered as she turned the pages to the first chapter. Aymeric pulled her closer, pressed his lips against her temple, and hummed contently as she began to read aloud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got nothing to say except writing this gave me fucking cavities while writing. There's also a coda I really need to get around to banging out for this ficlet at some point...


	11. A Spark of Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 10: Foster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187632702266/) on September 10, 2019.

This party was _sooooooo_ boring. Everyone was talking business and stocks and trade routes and economic policies and the price of blah blah blah _blah._ No discussions of the upcoming gladiatorial matches with the Bull of Ala Mhigo at the Coliseum, nothing about the latest fashion trend, not even a _peep_ about plays or books or cafes. Something, _anything_ that wasn’t business would be better!

_Ugh._

Rereha sighed and tugged on her mother’s skirts. “Mama, may I go get something to drink?”

Mama diverted her attention from whichever merchant king she talking to this time—Rereha had stopped keeping track, after about the third they all started to bleed together in her mind—to look down and pat her on the head. “Go ahead, dear,” she said.

“Thank you, Mama,” Rere replied, immediately toddling off in the direction of the refreshment table.

(“Such lovely manners your daughter has,” Lord Lolorito said.

“Such a shame yours don’t match,” Shushuha Shuha quipped back.

“Now, now, my lady, I know Teledji has been a regular business partner of mine, but to blur the lines so much you confuse me for him? It might be time to stop squinting through those jewelers’ lenses of yours.”

“I’ll do that when you stop wearing that mask.”)

Rereha wove her way through the crowd with the expertise of someone who had done this before far too many times already—and as a ten-year old, that was saying something. Ul’dahn children of the merchant and noble classes, however, were accessories at soirees as much as jewels and fine embroidery were, and so she and her peers learned quickly the best way to navigate a crowd. It helped, of course, that in Ul’dah, people knew to look _down_ at who might be moving about the room. She reached the refreshment table quickly, at least, and climbed one of the step stools placed out for lalafellin guests.

“A glass of cactus pear juice, please,” she said primly to the server behind the table. He bowed to her, and turned away to fetch her the drink.

As she waited, Rereha rocked back on her heels (not particularly ladylike, but she was ten, allowances could be made, so if Mama was looking her way, she wasn’t likely to get a scolding once they were home) and looked around. The crowd parted for a moment, and she thought she saw another child—a hyur?—before the too-tall adults all moved back in.

Hmmm. Someone her age at least?

Rereha thanked the server once he brought her the chilled glass cup of cactus pear juice, and she hopped down from the stool with drink in hand, weaving her way through the crowds once more. Instead of heading back to Mama, though, like she probably should, she headed in the direction she had seen the other child. Maybe they could complain together about how boring it was being dragged along to these things.

She successfully found the other kid, and it _was_ hyur—a girl, even, yes! The other girl was taller than her, but that wasn’t exactly noteworthy of anyone not another lalafell, and looked to be maybe seven or eight. Ish. Rereha wasn’t good at these things. (Heron was, and she wished she were here, but Heron’s parents were, in fact, kind and caring people who didn’t want their daughter to die of boredom, even if they hadn’t been Sultansworn.) The little hyur was wearing a pale grey taffeta dress, skirts poofed out by tulle petticoats, and her brown hair had been pulled into two limp pigtails, draped over her shoulders and tied with silk ribbons that matched her dress.

Rereha mentally wrinkled her nose. Who had dressed her? This was a travesty, even Heron’s extended family of career Sultansworn and bodyguards and mercenaries knew how to dress for their complexions. That was an awful color on her, it washed her out _completely_ and made her pretty bronze skin look like a sludgy cistern after a sandstorm. A darker storm grey would have been nicer, at least, or maybe something blue—true blue, or royal, or a dark shade—to make her green eyes pop. She had _very_ pretty green eyes, exactly the same color as the prize emeralds Mama liked to work with in the shop.

She also was doing a very good job of pretending to not be scared. Her hands were folded in front of her and her expression carefully neutral, the very picture of a well-behaved aristo daughter. But Rere saw the way her knuckles were white with the force of gripping her hands together, the way her nails looked a little chewed, and how her eyes darted back and forth, clearly looking or waiting for someone, and Rere definitely saw the slowly rising panic of the girl not recognizing anyone around herself.

Oh, that would _not_ do! Not at all!

“Hi!” Rereha said, popping into the other girl’s line of sight. The hyur jumped, eyes widening. “I’m Rereha! What’s your name?”

“Um, I’m—I’m Synnove,” the hyur said, hands now fidgeting with her dress. “Nice to meet you, Rereha.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Synnove!” Rereha beamed. “Do you want to get something to drink? They have fresh cactus pear juice!”

Synnove looked around cautiously. She seemed slightly less panicky now as she said, “I—I shouldn’t, I need to wait for Mother.”

Rere tilted her head curiously. “Did she say to stay here?"

“No,” said Synnove, biting her lower lip. “No, she saw one of her business partners and went to talk to him, I lost her in the crowd. And, um, I don’t know anyone else here and, um, I didn’t know who to ask for help.” She ducked her head and added, very, very quietly, “It’s hard to tell who will be nice.”

She was right. Just because an adult _looked_ friendly didn’t necessarily mean they _were._ Especially in a crowd like this. Synnove was a smart cookie.

Kids, at least, were much easier.

“Well, now you know me!” Rereha said with a smile. Synnove returned it, though it was small and hesitant. Rereha continued, “So let’s get you something to drink and something to eat, they usually have some _proper_ snacks for the kids that get dragged here by their parents. Nothing like _caviar._”

Rereha and Synnove made matching disgusted faces.

“Caviar is _gross,_” Synnove said.

“So gross,” Rereha agreed with a nod, and held out her hand. “Come with me!”

The other girl took her hand, smiling fully and properly now, and Rereha skipped through the crowd, tugging Synnove behind her.

Rereha had the feeling—and she was never wrong about these kinds of things!—that this was the beginning of a _beautiful_ friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As stated in the fic, Rereha is ten and Synnove is eight (so it's been three years since the Fall of Ala Mhigo); Heron, by comparison, is elevenish, maybe twelve. Also writing kids is HARD.
> 
> (Also also, this is the closest so far that Isolde Greywolfe has gotten to properly appearing in a story. I dread the day she actually needs to be in one; is it possible to dislike your own character?)


	12. Pyromania

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 11: Snuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187655246886/) on September 11, 2019.
> 
> Mild spoilers for Shadowbringers MSQ through the level 75 dungeon.

Ivar had begged Synnove to carry him, his utter loathing of water meaning he didn’t even wish to wade through the trickling stream that led away from the lair of the marid-sized bat that barred their path forward. Synnove had acquiesced with a chuckle, scooping him up and letting him dangle from her arms like a popoto sack, the way he always liked to be carried. The small delay in that meant that they were the last of the group to reach the end of the tunnel, and the ruby carbuncle’s eyes widened when he saw the lush jungle spread out before them, crawling with sin eaters in attendance on the Lightwarden of Rak’tika Greatwood. He tapped his paws in delight against Synnove’s arms, tails lashing in excitement and ears twitching wildly, and chattered frantically. _Mama! Mama, I want to set it on fire!_

“Set what on fire, Ivar?”

_ALL OF IT. EVERYTHING. ON FIRE._

Synnove sighed heavily, the long-suffering one shared by all mothers of persistent troublemakers, shaking her head, as Rereha and Alakhai snickered on either side of her. “No, honey," she said.

_BUT I WANNA!_

“Ivar, I said no.”

The ruby carbuncle pouted, slouching down, and made a sulky-sounding chirp, almost too low to be heard. _Could set myself on fire and do it all anyway…_

Synnove’s expression went completely blank and she stilled so utterly she seemed almost like a statue. Alisaie and Alphinaud both looked over at her, simultaneously choked at the _lack_ of expression on her face, and grabbed Minfilia, dragging her back from the edge. The Oracle looked between them, bewildered, as Thancred sighed in exasperation.

“You do not want to be in the way in case he gets surly,” Alisaie muttered out of the corner of her mouth to Minfilia.

Ivar finally realized he had been _heard_, and that he had made A Grave Error, as his ears went straight up in panic and he tilted his head to look at Synnove, chattering loudly. _WAIT, MAMA—_

Y’shtola pointed to the far left of the bottom of the waterfall atop which they all stood. “The deepest part of the pool is right there.”

_MAMA DON’T._

“Thank you, Shtola,” Synnove said with solemn grace. “You are, as ever, a terrifying angel of vindictiveness, and should I ever be so foolish as to irrevocably piss you off, I will deserve what I get and ask that you send my ashes to my aunt and give copies of my research to your sister.”

Urianger covered his mouth to stifle his laugh as Y’shtola smirked in delight and preened. “Your request is reasonable,” she said. “I’ll allow it.”

_MAMA! MAMA NO!_

Synnove walked right to the edge of the waterfall, right above where Y’sthola had pointed, the Scions clearing out of her as she clamped down on a frantically squirming Ivar. The Highlander spun around on her heel so she faced the whole group and nodded to them in a salute. Ivar struggled harder to escape, in vain. “See you at the bottom,” she said.

And then she fell backwards over the edge of the falls.

Ivar’s screeching echoed back up to the Scions as they peered over the edge. Distantly, they saw Synnove hit the water and go under, steam billowing upward in her wake in a loud, angry _hissssssssss_. A few moments later, Synnove bobbed back to the surface and began lazily swimming to the edge of the pool.

Minfilia _stared_ over the twins’ shoulders at the tableau, blue eyes huge. “Is that—is this normal?”

“Mmmm, pretty much,” Heron said.

“Ivar’s pyromania is a…frequent trouble for Synnove,” Urianger said.

“Oh, don’t bother with the diplomacy,” Rereha said, waving her hand. “Ivar’s a brat and his head occasionally needs dunking.”

“Particularly to prevent him from going on a spree of arson,” Alphinaud muttered.

“Ivar hath a startling tendency to know when he is insulted, and to respond to such in a _fiery_ manner, no matter that his mother’s opinion on the matter is similar to whomever is the victim of Ivar’s vengeance. I ere only on the side of caution.”

Thancred shook his head. “All right, there will be plenty of time to fill in Minfilia about the remaining idiosyncrasies of Synnove’s carbuncles, in detail, once we’ve dealt with the Lightwarden. Let’s find a less damp way down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the thing: if Ivar had apologized, Synnove would _not_ have resorted to the extreme measure of jumping into water to get him to chill.


	13. Boom (or Bust)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 12: Fingers Crossed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187690909276/) on September 12, 2019.

Aetherophysics Departmental Testing Site: The Range was a small island in the Indigo Deep, somewhere to the south and west of Vylbrand. It was roughly two square malms in size, its shape generously described as oblong, and numerous testing sites for spells, explosives, and other ordnance has been set up across the space. In the very center of the tiny spit of land was the main building, where the aether batteries that powered various sensors and other devices were housed deep, deep under the surface. The southeastern portion of the island was dedicated to live five artillery tests by the various squadrons of the Crimson Fleet, though today no Lominsan ships sailed nearby. The Range was otherwise empty, too, save for a quartet of senior arcanists at Test Site #9.

Keltgeim stared at the large shell in bemusement as A’khebica puttered around the piece of ammunition, setting up aetheric sensors by slamming spiked cannisters into the dirt and them stomping them down so they were flush with the ground. “Why is it we got tapped fer this test and not one o’ the powder monkeys in the fleet?” Kelt said. “I thought this beast was the brainchild of someone outta the Bloodbrine squadron.”

Starling shrugged.

Synnove finished scribbling in her notebook, snapping it shut and tucking it back into one of her myriad hip pouches. “Three words for you,” she said, holding up her hand. She flicked up her forefinger, middle finger, and ring finger for emphasis as she spoke, “Powdered. Aether. Crystals.”

Both Keltgeim and Starling turned to stare at her. The most obvious expression on their faces was unadulterated horror, but there was also a gleam of interest in their eyes.

“The base for this thing t’ ignite is _inert ceruleum_, not black powder,” Kelt said slowly.

“That is correct,” Synnove drawled. “Khebi can tell you the exact ratios; there’s still some black powder present, but yes, the fuel is primarily inert ceruleum with a specific mix of powdered aether crystals of assorted aspects to act as the oxidizer. I am not allowed to disclose which aspects and in what amounts. That’s where the Guild came in, since we manage the stock of crystals for the city and Maelstrom. And, of course,” she gestured around them, “we have the Range.”

Starling blinked slowly. “So, this will either not work at all…”

“…or make a _really big boom,_” Kelt finished.

There was a moment of quiet reflection as the implications of what monstrosity was being tested sank in—and then the three of them exchanged matching wide, mad, delighted smiles.

Khebi scampered over to the trio, beaming. “The sensors are ready,” she chirped. “The Ironworks was very kind to share the designs for their new blast-proof cannisters with us! We should get some excellent readings without having to worry about recovering pieces and then putting them back together.”

Synnove crossed her arms, looking away shiftily as the group began to walk towards the blast shelter on the very edge of Test Site #9.

Keltgeim leaned over to mutter from the corner of her mouth, “You got Cid in a headlock and threatened to shave him bald until he shared the specs, didn’t you?”

Synnove didn’t say anything in response, just giggled evilly. Keltgeim chortled and clapped her on the back. Starling’s ears flicked towards them both, and the white-haired miqo’te snickered into her hand as Khebi, oblivious to the exchange, babbled enthusiastically about the upcoming test.

Once ensconced inside the bunker, Kelt and Star hunkered down in front of the narrow windows that looked down onto the testing area while Synnove and Khebi huddled in the corner for the final preparations. They had specifically set the ordnance shell at the far end of this location, some one hundred yalms away, to keep them as far back from the blast as possible. Very distantly, one could see the blinking green light Khebi had placed on top of one of the permanent sensor arrays close to the edge of the site.

Synnove leaned over a control panel, flipping switches as Khebi read out the checklist.

“Aether tanks rerouted away from test site?”

“Check.”

“Primary hub sensors turned off?”

“Check.”

“Shut down of neighboring testing sites active sensor arrays?”

“Check…”

Once they finished, they rejoined Star and Kelt. Without saying anything, they all put on their goggles; Kelt, Star, and Synnove all pulled theirs down over their eyes while Khebi pulled hers up from around her neck. While the glass in the narrow window was specially treated and reinforced to be blast proof, all members of the Arcanists’ Guild knew to prepare for _any_ eventually—like brand new, untested explosive accelerants. Particularly when flying glass could be an issue. Eye protection in place, all four of them put in their ear plugs.

Khebi held her finger over the button that would activate the ordnance shell. “Test number one for aetheric-ceruleum powder blend AA-01 commencing in five,” she said cheerfully.

Synnove, Starling, and Keltgeim wore identical mad scientist smiles, lips stretched so wide their cheeks likely hurt. “Proceed, Khebi,” said Synnove. The trio immediately covered their ears as extra protection.

“Five! Four! Three! Two! One!”

Khebi pushed the button and hurriedly slapped her hands over her ears.

** _BOOM!_ **

* * *

Synnove sat up slowly, pulling her goggles down off her face and taking out her earplugs, for all the good they had done, wincing as she did. Holy Twelve, that had been a nasty shockwave; the blast shelter windows looked like they had held, but they were badly cracked, chips falling away, and would need to be replaced. “Everyone all right?” she said. She could barely hear herself with how much her ears were still ringing.

Grunts of agreement from Star and Kelt, and a chipper, “I’m all right!” from Khebi.

Synnove pushed herself to her feet, staggering only a little bit, and once she had her balance again, went to give Khebi a hand up. She helped the tiny miqo’te brush dust off herself—no glass at all, thank the Twelve _and_ the Mothercrystal, and it was absolutely a major miracle the blast windows hadn’t shattered entirely—and straighten her robes. “Well, we know it works,” Synnove said.

“You need to come look at this, Synnove.”

Synnove jerked her head towards Starling, eyebrow raised. The white-haired miqo’te and Kelt were both staring out the blast window, jaws hanging open.

Synnove’s did the same when she saw the damage.

“Uh,” came Kelt.

“Oh, dear,” Khebi said.

“That’s a really big hole,” Star said.

The blast shelter now sat at the edge of an enormous, perfectly circular crater that sloped downwards to the distant epicenter. Based on the angle of the slope, the crater was roughly twenty fulms deep. Fine dust and larger chunks of dirt and rock rained down; Synnove started doing the calculations in her head for how high into the firmament the explosion must have launched all that earth for it to still be falling, and then immediately yanked her mind to a halt. That would require calculating the force of the blast and she wanted to enjoy the high of a successful test before reality reasserted itself.

Test Site #9 was, effectively, _gone._ Test Site #10 might be, too.

The four stared at the smoking, gaping hole in the island for a few long minutes, eyes wide, and only occasionally blinking.

Finally, Synnove said, awe and manical _glee_ starting to combine into the cackle that sent the baby arcanists running for cover, “I love this job.”

“Seconded.”

“Thirded.”

“Fourthed!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keltgeim Eyristyrwyn belongs to [tehjai](tehjai.tumblr.com); Starling Nightsong belongs to [wanderedaimlessly](https://wanderedaimlessly.tumblr.com/); and A'khebica Ginwa belongs to [chaemera](https://chaemera.tumblr.com/)! All three were used with permission.


	14. To Tend the Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 13: Wax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187713369616/) on September 13, 2019.
> 
> Mild spoilers for Shadowbringers MSQ through the end of the Il Mheg storyline, and spoilers for the Binding Coils of Bahamut.

She had first noticed it during the battle at Laxan Loft, but it wasn’t until they had reached Il Mheg that Synnove gave her full attention to the new aether curling and weaving amongst her own.

Oddly enough, it _wasn’t_ the Lightwarden’s. That creature’s aether had felt ice-sharp and rotten-soft at the same time, white to the point of pain and not singing but _screeching_ of broken glass and denied, raging hunger. And the taste, _ugh._ Cod boiled to the point of rubber. No, that foul aether sat in the core of herself, sulking and bitter, but otherwise not influencing her spells.

No, this aether was…warm. Fiery, but the welcome flame of a campfire in the night, or the hearth of a well-loved home. She outright dismissed it as Ifrit’s aether leaking out of Ivar’s egi subprogram; _that_ was too distinctive and too familiar, the rage of pride and ferocious strength of arms. This new aether was familiar, yes, and the way it intertwined among her own, yet remained separate, reminded her of a primal’s lingering touch, so clearly at some point she had come into contact with it. And back on the Source, as no primals existed here on the First.

She had a very strong hunch she knew what it was, but proper science required testing and observation, not _hunches_. Regardless, a hunch could, at least, form a hypothesis, and with this one set, now it was time to observe.

First: the Dreadwyrm’s aether coalesced _much_ faster. Previously, she had needed to trance at least twice to build up sufficient reserves to (grudgingly) indulge Ivar and his love of explosive destruction and use him as the core to summon Demi-Bahamut to the field. Now she only needed to trance just the once. Ivar, at least, was _delighted_ by this change, her bloodthirsty, rage-filled boy.

(And thank all the gods that she had stopped having panic attacks after every time she had activated that array. Flashbacks on the battlefield were…troublesome.)

Second: the strange new aether reached peak coalescence only after she had finished coalescing Dreadwyrm aether and then dissipated it with a summon of Demi-Bahamut. In fact, she couldn’t even tap into Dreadwyrm aether at all until she had tranced once with the new aether.

Third: while trancing with the new aether, two of her spells were affected. _Outburst_ was a relatively new creation that the aetherochemistry department had only recently finalized; Synnove had offered to field test it shortly before she and the others had been whisked away to the First. The spell fluctuating due to an unexpected outside influence was unusual, considering how rigorously the Guild tested and developed their arrays before the field-testing stage, but not impossible. _Ruin III,_ however, was an old standby, a tried and true blast of raw aetheric power reserved for the most talented members of the Guild that had been in circulation for _years._ The only arrays more stable were the ones for the rest of the _Ruin_ series and the standard carbuncle summons they gave to the baby arcanists (who weren’t insane overachievers like herself who had to write her own from scratch).

And it wasn’t as if the effects were _subtle_. Both _Ruin III_ and _Outburst_ were unaspected spells; arcanists generally _liked_ working without the interference of specific elemental affinities, or alternatively with an equal amount of each kind so that they all canceled one another out, as it made the math _behave_. (There was a bloody good reason she had run into the wall on her artificial aether infusion project: juggling the proper ratios of elementally aspected aether was essentially working with literal fucking chaos and sometimes it was fun, but most of the time it was just a headache and it _sucked._) This new surge of primal aether turned her respectable, unaspected spells into _roiling balls of flame and pitch._

Ivar, of course, loved it. Heron and Alakhai and Tyr, who also fought directly in the scrum of melee, not so much.

Fourth: the aether sang, as it always did. It reminded her very strongly of the Dreadwyrm aether’s dirgelike ballad (the one that had haunted Eorzea for months before Carteneau, and permeated nearly every ilm of the Coils), but this aether’s song was slower, more solemn. Wordless crooning matched with the resonant tones of an Ishgardian pipe organ. It was a funeral hymn as she had always heard them: no rage, only deep, boundless sorrow, and a bottomless well of love.

Observations complete, she compared the data sets the night they vanquished Titania and the pixies threw out the Eulmorans, absently rubbing her chest every so often as she did. The carbuncles curled up around her in various stages of patience—Galette in her usual spot around her neck, Tyr loafed next to her, Ivar sprawled in her lap and reaching up to either bat at his sister’s tails or his brother’s ears—as she set up the portable readout device she had thankfully packed before leaving the Gate. Synnove flipped open her grimoire sitting on the ground next to her, opposite from Tyr, paging through without looking until she got to the first page of the arrays for Ivar’s passive sensor programming.

Humming quietly, she took the channeling stylus from her mouth, and placed the tip on the activation sigil. The array lit up, and so, too, did the readout device, pulsing out a hologram that immediately began scrolling through the most recent aether readings. Synnove squinted as she skimmed the data, scratching Tyr’s neck until the big carbuncle turned into a happy puddle of brass purrs.

Then, with the press of a specific sequence of buttons, she called up data from nearly four years ago.

“Synnove?”

She looked up, only a little startled, to meet Alisaie’s worried gaze.

“Is everything all right?” said Alisaie.

Synnove looked back at the data, gnawing on her lower lip as the implications of what it contained began to sink into her mind. She let out a slow breath and said, “Don’t know yet. Fetch your brother, please, the both of you need to see this.”

Alisaie, Twelve bless her, didn’t hesitate, just turned on her heel and hurried off to find Alphinaud. She returned with her twin in a handful of minutes to the spot out in the fields surrounding Lydha Lran that Synnove had settled in to review her notes. By the time they reached her, Synnove had pulled up both data sets onto the viewer at once. She gestured, and the siblings both sat in front of her.

“So,” said Synnove, setting down her channeling stylus carefully to ensure the tip still touched the activation sigil of the sensor array, “I’ve noticed a peculiar bit of aether mixing with my own recently and no, it’s _not_ the Lightwarden’s.”

Alphinaud and Alisaie’s looks of alarms quickly subsided, in favor of concern and interest as Synnove outlined for them the changes she had noted and her observations over the last few days. Then she pointed to the readout device.

“The display on the left is the recent data Ivar’s passive sensors have recorded,” she said. “I’m sure Galette and Tyr’s would read the same, but since Ivar is the only one installed with the Dreadwyrm Protocols, he has the most complete set.”

Alphinaud scratched Tyr behind the ears, as the big carbuncle had crawled forward for pettings during Synnove’s explanation. “And I note that it’s exactly the same as the display on the right,” he said.

Synnove hummed agreement, rhythmically running her hand down Ivar’s back from his head to the base of his tails.

Alisaie sat with her arms crossed, just staring at the displayed data, eyes tracking back and forth between the sets. Finally, she said, “The data from the right is from the Binding Coils, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Synnove, quiet and serious.

“You failed to mention what this aether tasted like,” said Alisaie, almost accusingly. “You’re not one to skip something so quantifiable.”

Synnove stared at her consideringly, still petting Ivar, before she finally said, “Marzipan and sour cherry cake.”

Alphinaud let out a long breath. Alisaie swallowed hard and said, almost too quietly to be heard, “That was Grandfather’s favorite.” And then, louder, though her voice trembled just a bit: “That’s _Phoenix’s_ aether, then.”

“I believe so.”

Alphinaud did not look as rattled as his twin, but Synnove had known him long enough to spot the tension around his mouth and eyes. “Why now?” he said. “You’ve been using the Dreadwyrm Protocols for a number of years by now, so why has Phoenix’s aether remained dormant for so long?”

“My best guess,” said Synnove, “is because we’re here on the First. Eorzea is upfront about the fact that Dalamud’s fall and Bahamut’s rampage unquestionably _fucked up_ the continent both on a physical and metaphysical level. The rest of our home star claims suddenly only having a single moon in the sky after the second one blew up a few malms directly above the surface had no effect on their magicks and aether, but we can all three agree that they’re probably trying to save face to a bunch of foreigners how mucked up things got for them, because that is a _load of chocobo shite._”

Alphinaud coughed, smothering a smile, as Alisaie momentarily forgot her distress and snickered loudly. “There’s a familiar rant,” said Alisaie.

“You need to visit the Gate when we return home,” said Alphinaud drily. “Synnove’s is tame compared to how heated her colleagues become on the topic.”

Synnove cleared her throat, raising both eyebrows in the universal expression of, _Are you quite finished?_ The twins quieted, smiling apologetically at her.

“Bahamut’s aether didn’t just insinuate itself into everyone at Carteneau,” Synnove eventually said, continuing to pet Ivar and reaching up with her other hand to scratch behind Galette’s ears. Both carbuncles purred happily. “And it didn’t just insinuate itself into everyone in Eorzea, though I’ll grant that Eorzeans have the highest concentrations. No, Bahamut’s aether is _everywhere_ on the Source; it’s permeated every rock and tree and beastkin and Spoken.

“It’s always been too easy to coalesce Dreadwyrm aether; when I’ve run through my own aetheric reserves, I can still use the Protocols without much fuss. If I was only ever using the aether co-mingled with my own, I _should_ run out, but I don’t. Thus, I _have_ to also be unconsciously drawing upon the Dreadwyrm aether all around me.”

“But here on the First,” said Alphinaud, thoughtful, “Bahamut’s aether only exists in you and us Scions. I have noticed you still have had no issues using the Protocols, so we can assume you are able to draw on the Dreadwyrm aether within us and the others.”

Synnove inclined her head to him. “Just so, though I haven’t yet formulated a sound enough reason for why I can coalesce it faster.”

“Regardless of that wrinkle, with a finite amount of Dreadwyrm aether,” said Alisaie, “Phoenix’s aether is finally detectable, and even able to exert influence and become _usable_ with the dissipation of Bahamut’s. And with how quickly and how strongly it coalesces, it needs to be dissipated in turn before repeating the cycle.”

“That is my theory for what’s occurring,” said Synnove. “And, of course, I’ve noticed Phoenix’s aether steadily growing stronger and more stable since this began a few days ago. The data suggest it will continue to grow at a steady rate, although I suspect at some point it will plateau.”

The twins shared a long, silent look. Alphinaud raised a single eyebrow. Alisaie nodded.

They turned back to her, their expressions serious, but sparks of excitement were in their eyes. Synnove recognized it and grinned; bless their nerdy hearts, her darling little sibs.

“What would you like to do with this, Synnove?” said Alphinaud.

“And how can we help?” said Alisaie.

“Well,” drawled Synnove, “we’ll need to build some arrays to control how Phoenix’s aether warps my spells when I’m trancing with it. And then, I believe, we should prepare for the day when his aether has grown strong enough that a Phoenix will fly the skies of the First as he once did at Carteneau to vanquish Bahamut, with all the prayers of Eorzea to guide him. If you two are all right with that?”

The twins dove forward to embrace her; Galette squawked unhappily at being jostled, but they ignored her. Synnove returned their hugs, smiling, and tucked them in under her arms. Tyr immediately came over to flop across all three of their laps; Ivar yowled unhappily beneath him.

“You’re the only one I’d trust with it,” Alisaie said.

“We couldn’t think of anyone better suited,” added Alphinaud.

“Thank you,” Synnove said, as heartfelt and honored as she could. “Now then, my fellow nerds, let’s get to it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I was sorely tempted to title this, "Flames of Truth," but I thought that was a little _too_ on the nose. Also also, I am just...forever fucking frustrated we can summon Phoenix now with ZERO. FUCKING. EXPLANATION. IT WAS KINDA DISCUSSED IN GAME WHY THE EVENTS OF THE COILS NEEDED TO BE KEPT HUSH HUSH, WOULDN'T THIS JUST RAISE SOME QUESTIONS BACK ON THE SOURCE?
> 
> ...I have a lot of feelings about the Binding Coils okay.


	15. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 14: Scour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187723267316/) on September 14, 2019.

“Synnove, have you seen my—”

“Middle left shelf of your desk!”

“Thank you!” Hurried footsteps headed in the direction of Aymeric’s office.

Synnove went back to hurriedly rolling up shirts and pants as tightly as possible and shoving them into travel packs. She did a quick count—shite, still missing her favorite pair of breeches. She dove back into the walk-in closet.

The Ishgardian Parliament was officially in spring recess as of three bells ago. However, they hadn’t been scheduled to recess until _next sennight_; with the war stalled out in a holding pattern at the Ghimlyt, and all the most pressing matters related to the Ishgardian homefront settled, both the House of Commons and House of Lords had agreed to end the parliamentary session early. The lords whose family seats were outside the city proper would be returning thence to oversee the last of the spring plantings and attend to other pressing matters on their estates, with their counterparts in the lower house doing similar; the cityfolk, both nobles and commoners, would return to their daily business and tasks. Should matters on the Ala Mhigan front change, it had been agreed that an emergency session of Parliament would be called as necessary.

As Alliance intelligence—supplemented by Riol of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn—was confident the Garleans wouldn’t be attempting to break through the Eorzean lines any time soon, Aymeric wasn’t needed to command the Temple Knights and Knights Dragoon serving on the front. Handeloup was rotating in as Ishgardian field commander, with Lucia overseeing matters at home, and then the two would switch out for one another before either of them would let Aymeric anywhere _near_ a command post. The plan had been that once Parliament recessed, Aymeric and Synnove would escape to La Noscea, as Synnove didn’t have any classes to teach this semester and out of consideration for her duties as a Warrior of Light, wasn’t being tapped for deployment to the Lominsan Rescue Fleet for the upcoming summer fishing season. The lovers were to _relax_ and enjoy themselves for as long as possible.

It was an excellent plan, very tidy in its simplicity, and as all well-laid out plans did, it blew up at first contact with the enemy. And it would have been too damn suspicious for the Speaker of the House of Lords to veto an early recess motion that had passed both Houses. Even though Aymeric and Synnove _hadn’t packed yet,_ because they had thought they had had another entire sennight.

And the politicians-at-heart did so dearly _love_ to speak with Ser Aymeric when he apparently had no other pressing matters to which he had to attend. Aymeric had only been able to successfully flee the Parliament building when, first, his aides ran interference in the hallways, and, second, he climbed out of his office window like a delinquent dragoon squire flouting curfew.

Lucia’s voice came over the linkpearl. “Hilda and her lot staged an overturned cart at the Crozier, that’s stopped Lady Lasserant. For now. I’ve got my eyes on Lord Chevraudan, I can’t be sure where he’s headed as of yet.”

“Remind me to ask Auntie to send you a package of halva,” said Synnove as she frantically yanked open drawers and pawed through them in search of her godsdamned favorite breeches. Where the _hells_ were they?

Lucia’s throaty chuckle echoed in her ear before she cut the connection.

“Laundry has been put in the packs in the foyer!” Hersande, the matronly housekeeper and cook for Borel Manor, called out from the first floor, voice echoing.

Synnove stuck her head out of the closet, knowing her voice would just barely echo down the stairs with the bedroom door thrown wide open: “Thank you, you’re a treasure!”

After another few minutes of fruitless searching, Synnove stomped out of the closet and to the bedroom door, placing her hands on the frame for balance as she leaned out. She turned in the general direction of Aymeric’s office and yelled, “Love, have you seen my favorite breeches?”

“Under the bed!”

Synnove blinked. “Under the—” She ducked back into the bedroom, took three long strides to the king-sized bed, and dropped down to her stomach to peer underneath it. Her eyebrows shot up. “Huh,” she said. “You’d think I’d recall where these went considering how enthusiastic Aymeric was ripping them off me.”

She reached out, arm straining and fingers wiggling, and snagged the belt loop. Cackling triumphantly, she yanked the breeches towards herself and pushed herself to feet, quickly folding the pants up before shoving them into her pack and latching it closed.

She heard faint swearing as she exited the bedroom. “Count Dzemael is on the way down the street!” Baptistaux, the manor’s butler and Hersande’s husband, shouted from where he was on lookout next to the front door.

Synnove swore and bolted down the stairs, two at a time, grabbing the handrail and using her momentum to swing around the corner once she reached the bottom. She threw the packs she was already carrying over her shoulders, and picked up another in the foyer. Aymeric ran out of his office and skidded to a stop next to her, unceremoniously shoving his writing kit into another pack.

“Oh, Fury bless him,” Baptistaux breathed, peering around the window curtain next to the front doors. “I don’t know _where_ he came from, but Lord Edmont just intercepted Dzemael.”

Aymeric and Synnove both hurried over, Aymeric standing on tiptoe and Synnove crouching to see out the window—and, respectfully, over and under Baptistaux’s head—without being seen in turn.

Indeed, the former Count of House Fortemps had stopped Count Dzemael to speak with him. Lord Edmont’s body language was relaxed and easy, hands resting on his cane as he chatted, while Count Dzemael was all jerky agitation. The latter, clearly, didn’t welcome the distraction.

“Uncle Edmont is _the best,_” Synnove said fervently. Aymeric nodded vigorous agreement.

The three leaned back from the window, and Baptistaux reached over to the hook by the door, picking up the bow and quiver of arrows before shoving them into Aymeric’s arms. “Off with you, my boy,” the elderly elezen said jovially. “Take some time to actually rest instead of haring off with your lady love on an adventure, would you?”

“I make no promises,” Aymeric replied cheerfully, slinging bow and quiver over his shoulder. He leaned down to pick up two of the packs, striding quickly towards the back exit of the manor.

Synnove kissed Baptistaux’s cheek. “I’ll bring him back in one piece,” she said, smiling, and darted after Aymeric with a wave as the butler laughed.

Once she caught up to him, the pair practically sprinted through the hallways until they reached the kitchens at the back of the small manor. They both stopped to each drop a kiss on the head of Lady Crème, the aged, fluffy white cat of the house. The queen of Borel Manor accepted their tribute, blinking slowly at them from her favorite cushioned chair next to the hearth and purring softly.

“We’ll back for you once I’ve got the house cat-proofed,” crooned Synnove, gently scratching her behind the ears. Lady Crème purred louder. “You’ll enjoy a nice warm La Noscean summer, I have no doubt.”

Hersande bustled over and pressed a wrapped parcel into Aymeric’s hands. “A bit out of season, but there’s some gingerbread for you,” she said, “and a few sachets of proper tea to enjoy with it.”

Synnove kissed Hersande’s left cheek, and Aymeric the right. The elezen matron beamed at them and shooed them towards the door. “Go, go!” she said.

As they skulked out the back door, they heard Baptistaux’s voice down the halls, saccharine and apologetic, “I’m so sorry, Count Dzemael, Ser Aymeric isn’t home.” The two shared a mischievous grin and, linking their hands and entwining their fingers, darted down the back alleys of the Pillars towards the airship landing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at these two fucking dorks I love them so much.


	16. Shovel Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 15: Free Write | Scrutiny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187744121881/) on September 15, 2019.

A pattern of knocks—one two three, pause, one two three—sounded on his office doors. Aymeric looked up from the mass of papers and parchment strewn about his desk, chin balanced in his hand, blinking in confusion before realization settled upon him. That was one of the coded knocks his officers used when they couldn’t appraise him of the details otherwise, specifically to alert him to special guests; ones that required his undivided attention.

He hurriedly shrugged his armored surcoat back on and sat upright, straightening the paperwork into mostly neat piles with the speed and efficiency of long practice. “Yes?” he called out, voice carefully pitched to sound calm and collected.

The left door creaked open, and Lucia leaned inside. “My apologies for the disturbance, Ser Aymeric,” she said in her most formal tone. “A visitor to the Congregation requests an audience with you. May I escort her in?”

Not, _‘Are you able to meet with her?’_ Someone _quite_ important, then, if Lucia phrased the question in that manner. For the life of him, though, Aymeric could not figure out who this visitor might be.

“Please do, Ser Lucia,” he said, rising to his feet as his First Commander swung open the door fully. She bowed their mystery guest through first, only stepping inside herself once the visitor came to a stop in the middle of the office, halfway to Aymeric’s desk.

Their visitor was a hyur woman of middle age, her skin a warm golden brown and her dark eyes sharp and observant. She had a strong nose, crows’ feet at the corner of her eyes and deep laugh lines next to her mouth, and chestnut hair streaked with grey pulled into a thick braid pulled over her left shoulder that hung to her waist; she wore no makeup, and had an Ala Mhigan clan mark tattooed in deep red across the bridge of her nose and another painted on her right cheek. Her posture was perfectly straight as she politely held her hands clasped in front of herself, oozing a surety of purpose and resolve that made her seem much taller than she actually was.

What drew his attention nearly as much as her cool gaze and regal bearing was her style of clothing. Her storm grey dress was cashmere, embroidered heavily in dark red thread that formed geometric shapes, with the bottom hem featuring a motif that reminded him of animals—specifically, wolves and bears. The dress was cut to the knee, showing off sensible, heavy leather boots, and was belted with a heavy silver chain. Another silver chain, thinner than the belt, ran from her left hip to her right shoulder, behind which hung a silk cape striped in four thick bands of black, white, red, and storm grey. The cape was clasped to the chain by a silver wolf’s head with topaz eyes.

He had seen Synnove in Ala Mhigan formal wear nearly identical to this woman’s, once, though her dress had featured embroidery in dark green, and only wolves.

Aymeric felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. This was—

“Ser Aymeric de Borel,” Lucia said with her parade grounds voice, “I present Lady Angharad Greywolfe of Ala Mhigo.”

Oh. _Fuck._

“Lady Angharad,” said Aymeric (thank the Fury, his voice held steady and betrayed none of the terror he suddenly felt), coming around his desk to bow, “it is an honor and a privilege to meet you at last.”

Synnove’s beloved aunt’s answering smile was small and knowing as she dipped into a return curtsy. “The pleasure is mine, Lord Commander,” she said, her voice a raspy contralto.

“By your leave, sir?” said Lucia. Fury take her, his First Commander’s smile was absolutely wicked, despite her respectful, deferential tone. No doubt she was going to ‘pearl Rereha the moment she was in her own office.

Aymeric, sighing internally, inclined his head to her, and Lucia closed the office door behind herself as she left.

Angharad’s smile changed: now it was more a baring of teeth, and her eyes glittered. Wolves were dangerous, especially when protecting the den, but Synnove had once told him that the sigil of her aunt’s family—Redclawe—was a bear_._ And as any child of Coerthas knew, if there was anything more terrifying than a she-wolf guarding cubs, it was a she-_bear_ guarding cubs.

He swallowed, but stood up straighter as he pulled out one of the chairs on the opposite side of his desk. Lady Angharad strode forward and took the proffered seat with a quiet hum, and, once she was settled, Aymeric retook his own seat. He folded his hands on the desktop, to resist the urge to fidget, and met Lady Angharad’s assessing, suspicious gaze.

He and Synnove had not made any formal announcements about the changed state of their relationship, but neither had they attempted to hide it. There had been little to no negativity in Ishgard, save for some disappointed younger lords and ladies who had more stars than sense in their eyes, and Count Edmont had been openly delighted, beaming fit to burst. Alphinaud had seemed genuinely surprised, to Tataru’s resigned headshaking, but his congratulations had been sincere. And the three other Warriors of Light had crushed Synnove into a group hug while they said, “Finally!” But they also had, one by one, come to him or taken him aside privately.

Alakhai had been bluntly straightforward: she had walked right into his office and slammed one of her combat knives down, point first, into the ironwood of his desk. She had leaned forward and _stared_ at him, unblinking, for long, tense moments. He had returned her stare, resolute—and forewarned by Synnove about what he could expect from her sisters by choice when they were feeling overprotective—and eventually Alakhai had nodded in satisfaction, retrieved her knife, and left.

Dancing Heron had been similarly silent. She had taken him aside to one of the side parlors at House Fortemps, sat in one of the few chairs that could properly accommodate a roegadyn’s great height, and dragged a whetstone down her sword, slowly, so the sound echoed in his ears. The aura of sheer menace had been palpable, particularly when taken in concert with Heron’s easy familiarity with her gear, the age of her sword and how well-cared for it was, and the callouses on her hands from years of mercenary work and adventuring.

Rereha had been arguably the worst. To an outside observer, it had likely seemed innocent enough, the bard gesturing expansively while she chattered to him at one of the corner tables of the Forgotten Knight. Except she had shared, with obvious relish, stories of vengeance on unfaithful lovers, poisoned chalices for caddish heartbreakers, arrows to the heart to reclaim lost honor. Her tone had been light and airy, but her expression gleefully malicious, solidifying in Aymeric’s mind that Rereha Reha was one of the single most underestimated women in all of Eorzea.

(One night, not long after the Warriors of Light had finished ‘speaking’ with him, Synnove had tucked herself into his side and said, awed, respectful, and more than a little wary, “Lucia and Handeloup are _viciously_ creative.”

Thank the Fury, he apparently hadn’t been the only one threatened within an inch of his life by rabidly overprotective friends.)

Now, though, Aymeric was rather wishing to hear another of Rereha’s gore-filled tales of revenge or be the recipient of one of Heron’s lethal glares. What he knew of Angharad Greywolfe was based solely on Synnove’s recollections of the woman, and while he did not doubt her love for her aunt, nor Angharad’s love for her niece, their affectionate relationship no doubt colored Synnove’s perceptions of the woman. He was in the uncharted territory of not knowing what this woman thought of himself or his own relationship with her beloved niece.

Angharad, at least, wasn’t one to prevaricate. She folded her hands in her lap and raised one chestnut eyebrow at him. “My niece has spoken much of you, Lord Commander” said the lady, “and I quite know how well and how deeply she feels about you. But I would know: what drew _you_ to _her?_”

Aymeric did not even have to think about it. “When first I heard of her,” he said, “it was as one member of a group of outsiders seeking assistance from the High Houses in locating the _Enterprise_ as part of the efforts to combat the Ixali summoning of Garuda. My dear friend Haurchefant spoke highly of them all, but especially of Synnove and her immediate friends: their lack of complaint at the inane or thankless tasks set before them; their invaluable assistance in proving false the accusations of heresy against Lord Francel de Haillenarte; and their thwarting of a false inquisitor sowing chaos among our forces. They were honorable women, ones he counted friends, and Haurchefant never chose his friends lightly.

“I was, admittedly, quite taken with his descriptions of Synnove in particular,” he said ruefully. “He spoke of a serious young woman with a spine of steel and a will of iron. She was focused, driven, no-nonsense at first blush and seemingly unapproachable. But she was also kind, gentle to those who needed a soft hand, firm with those who required her strength. That she doted on her carbuncles, treated them like her children, and how they adored her in turn. That she had a wry sense of humor, and spoke with obvious excitement and joy about her aetheric arts and was always willing to answer questions as best she could.”

Aymeric smiled as the memory of their first meeting came to the fore of his mind and he said, softly, “I felt awe for her at first, particularly in the wake of the growing legend of her and her friends as slayers of primals and the vanquishers of the XIVth Legion. And when I first met her face to face, I did not expect her to be as beautiful on the outside as she so clearly was on the inside.” He shook his head. “That I came to know Synnove as a friend first and foremost, one who was all Haurchefant said she was and more, much more, is a gift for which I daily thank the Fury.

“What drew me to her? Her conviction. Her loyalty. Her delight at pushing the limits of reality and magic and finding new ones. Her enormous heart. Synnove is…a _magnificent_ woman.”

Lady Angharad stared at him thoughtfully for long moments, absorbing what he had told her, but her expression was otherwise unchanging. Finally, she said, “Once, she had a lover who asked her to put aside her work for the sake of their relationship. Synnove choose to end that relationship. And now she is also a Warrior of Light, who needs must put the good of Eorzea before all else. Are you prepared to handle that?”

Aymeric set his jaw. “First,” he said, attempting to modulate his tone to _firm_ and not _biting_, “as I said to Synnove when she told me the story, anyone who demands she give up _arcanima_ of all things is a damned mad fool who hasn’t bothered to listen her or to learn who she is or pay attention at all. I can only guess at how much the art means to her and how it has shaped her life.

“Second,” and now his voice turned wry, “I would be an _enormous_ hypocrite to demand of Synnove all her time and attention. I am the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights and currently also the interim head of government for Ishgard. My duty to Ishgard has always come first, and must continue to do so, as I know it must be with Synnove’s duty to the Arcanists’ Guild and to Eorzea. All I can ask of her is that she come home safe, as she also asks of me.”

Angharad hummed thoughtfully, and then, slowly, she smiled, wide and brilliant and genuine. She shared no blood with Synnove, so she did not resemble her, but Aymeric knew with certainty that it was from Angharad whom Synnove had learned to beam with such true, open joy.

“Two of the greatest workaholics in all of Eorzea in a relationship with one another,” his lady’s aunt drawled. She crossing her legs at the knee and smirked at him. “My, but your friends are going to have their work cut out for them coordinating the both of you into taking a damned vacation at the same time, never mind taking one in the first place.”

Aymeric burst out laughing, and Angharad joined him, holding onto the arms of her chair to steady herself as she guffawed. When the two settled down again, Angharad leaned back in her seat, eyeing him carefully. “To make it perfectly clear,” she said, “if you break my niece’s heart, I will bury your body where it can never be found.”

He blinked. “My lady,” he said slowly, “I would offer my neck to your sword if I ever did so. Although…”

She made a ‘go ahead’ gesture at him.

“Am I to except such, ah, _talks_ from other members of your family?”

Angharad smiled again: that baring of teeth, fierce and vicious. This time, though, it wasn’t aimed at him, but rather made on his behalf. “Ser Aymeric,” she said, “_I_ am the Greywolfe matriarch. You leave them to _me._”

Aymeric felt relief course through him and his shoulders slumped. “Oh, thank the Fury,” he muttered under his breath.

Angharad had heard him, however, and she _laughed_ at him. The sound of it confirmed for him that, oh, yes, Synnove had _absolutely_ learned that particular cackle at this woman’s knee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angharad Greywolfe is one of my favorite OCs and this has been an idea in my head for _literal years._ So glad I got the chance to write it at last this year. :D


	17. Math Binging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 16: Jitter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187767747506/) on September 16, 2019.

Synnove dragged her hand down her face, smearing chalk everywhere and turning her visage a ghastly mix of white and green and blue, and gulped down the last of her coffee. She set the empty mug down on her desk after two attempts to find the surface of it and stared balefully at the equations on the main chalkboard, and the ones nested above and next to it, arms crossed. She pointedly ignored how the letters and numbers and other symbols swam in front of her eyes.

She _would_ solve the Portelaine conjecture. She was _close,_ she could feel it in her bones. Once she had this, she could rub it in the noses of all those Hannish pricks who called themselves mathematicians and gave up without trying, and then she could get _really_ nasty with how she laid out her spell arrays.

“From the top,” she hissed to herself, and took a step forward towards her chalkboards.

Except as she set her foot back down, her legs gave out beneath her, and she crashed face first onto the floor.

Synnove groaned wordlessly. _Ow._ That was going to leave an interesting bruise, but at least she hadn’t broken her nose. As she got her breath back, she said a brief prayer of thanks to whichever of the Twelve was listening that she had installed nice rugs in her office.

She tried to get her arms beneath her and begin leveraging herself up off the floor, except suddenly there was an enormous creature loafing onto her back and butt and thighs. She thumped flat back onto the floor and groaned. Again.

“Tyrrrrrrrrr,” she growled without raising her head, “get off me.”

Her giant eldest son _boofed_ reproachfully at her, though she felt more than heard it. _Mama, you need to sleep!_

“No, I don’t,” she said into the rug. “I need to solve this math theorem and assert my dominance over the Thavnairians.”

_After you sleep!_

“Math!”

_BOOF!_

“_Language_, young man!”

Tyr loafed harder, pancaking in such a way she suspected he might have turned off his matter shaping array. Synnove snarled, trying to push herself up to her elbows to try and buck her carbuncle off, but her arms wouldn’t support her weight. She faceplanted _yet again_ and growled into the rug.

A throat clearing caught her attention. Synnove groaned—yes, again—and wearily looked up.

Halulu stared down at her, steam rising from a teacup carefully held in her hand. Her eyes were narrowed in displeasure.

“Noooooooooo,” Synnove whined, “not the sleepy tea.”

“Yes, the sleepy tea,” said Halulu, utterly without sympathy, the filthy traitor. “I let you get this far because you didn’t descend into any mad cackling like the lunatic you truly are, but it’s been forty-five hours since you last slept. You can’t walk straight—”

“I tripped!”

“—or write straight—”

“I have sloppy handwriting, you know this.”

“—or see straight—”

“That chair attacked me!”

“—and now you’re spouting _illogical statements._”

Synnove gasped in outrage. “Take that back!”

“I will not,” said Halulu, deceptively mild. Then she held out her hand with the cup. “Drink the tea.”

Synnove glared at it, and turned up her nose.

Suddenly, there was an _extraordinarily_ large butcher’s knife, sharpened to a razor’s edge, in Halulu’s other hand and a mad gleam in the tonberry’s eyes. “Synnove Greywolfe,” she hissed malevolently, “_drink the fucking tea._”

Synnove gulped and stared, frozen, like an antelope caught in a Keeper huntress’s sights. Then she took the cup from Halulu’s hand, raised it to her lips, and drained the hot liquid in three long pulls; she tasted valerian root, chamomile, rosehips, hibiscus, and peppermint. She handed the cup back to her assistant.

The knife had vanished to wherever Halulu kept that thing by the time she finished swallowing, and the tonberry accepted the fine porcelain back. “Thank you,” Halulu said brightly, scurrying out of sight to store it with the rest of the set.

Synnove slumped back down onto the floor, mushing her cheek against the rug, blinking slowly. She felt sluggish and droopy, not helped by Tyr starting up his brassy purr that rumbled through her bones. Wow, that tea worked fast. New blend?

She had just enough energy and presence of mind left to pick her head up off the floor long enough for Halulu to shove a pillow beneath it. And the moment she relaxed into the pillow, she was dead to the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did Synnove survive so many years without Halulu? Great question. Still don't have an answer.


	18. Needling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 17: Obeisant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187789301866/) on September 17, 2019.
> 
> Minor warnings for alcohol consumption.

Merlwyb looked up sharply when the door to her office opened unannounced. Who would dare—ah. At the sight of her visitor peering around the door, grinning manically, Merlwyb groaned, loudly, slouching back into her chair as she pinched the bridge of her nose. That’s who would dare. “Oh, Navigator guide me, it’s _you_,” she sneered.

“It’s _me,_” said Synnove in a saccharine tone. She gave a sloppy Maelstrom-style salute with her free hand—not even the correct one!—stepping out of the way so Tyr could trot into the office behind her, then hip-checked the door shut as she sashayed forward into the room. Her opposite arm was laden with folders and assorted paperwork, colorful tabs bristling among the pages, and Tyr carried a basket full of yet more reports.

The Admiral leaned down, pulling open one of the lower drawers of her desk. She rummaged inside for a moment, and then sat back up with a bottle of whiskey in hand. She pulled the cork with a grunt and added a generous splash to her tea. As Synnove dropped a veritable mountain of paperwork—well, a second mountain—on the desktop with a loud _THUD_, Merlwyb slammed the cork back into the bottle and dropped the whiskey back into the drawer it came from, kicking it shut.

Synnove dragged back one the chairs in front of the desk and sprawled in it, smirking. “Did you miss me?” she said, still falsely sweet. Tyr set his basket down next to his mother and then walked around the desk to sit next to Merlwyb, staring up at her with big, dark eyes.

The Admiral ignored him, even when she saw him make his eyes even bigger and sadder out of the corner of her eye, and sniffed disdainfully at the arcanist instead. “Not particularly,” she said. “For one thing, nothing’s blown up in my city, only in other countries, where it’s someone else’s mess to clean up.”

The Highlander grinned at her, unrepentant. “Now, that’s a dirty lie, Admiral, since I just signed off on the repair estimates for the northwest tower lab, and _that_ very pretty explosion was managed by the second-years according to the report.”

“I should foist you off on Kan-E or Nanamo; see how they like managing the chaos you generate instead of them laughing behind their hands every time the subject comes up at Alliance meetings.”

“Admiral,” admonished Synnove, affecting a concerned frown. “That’s actually rather rude. And cruel. And a diplomatic incident waiting to happen. _They_ both have to deal with _Rereha_ on a regular basis, after all.”

Merlwyb scowled at her and took a long, pointed pull of whiskey-laced tea. “I liked you better when you were younger, all green and shy and _respectful,_” she muttered into her cup.

“No, you didn’t.” Synnove’s grin split her cheeks.

Merlwyb set her cup down and sighed. “No, I suppose I didn’t.” Finally, without looking over at him, she reached over and gave Tyr a few rough pats on the head.

Tyr _boof_ed happily, tapping his feet against the hardwood floors of her office excitedly. Then he crawled into the space underneath her desk and loafed as much of himself as he could on her feet, starting up his big brass purr that rumbled through the floorboards and made the papers on her desk gently vibrate. Synnove cackled as the Admiral rolled her eyes, but tellingly, the Admiral didn’t try to shoo him away.

Merlwyb drained her cup dry and poured herself a fresh serving (no whiskey this time, however). Grudgingly, she filled a second, and slid it over to Synnove, along with the bowl of maple sugar cubes and jar of cream. The arcanist doctored her tea as she preferred it—three lumps, generous dash of cream—and took a luxurious sip, humming in satisfaction.

“Why _are_ you here?” the Admiral finally said, tea cup in hand and elbows braced on her desk. She wedged her feet a little firmer beneath Tyr.

“Mmmm, we had to bodily force Thubyrgeim to take a vacation,” said Synnove. She took another slow sip of tea. “Accounting realized she hadn’t taken a proper one in nigh on three years. So, we kicked her out of the Gate, with the caveat that she wasn’t to come back until next moon, and then we divvied up her usual responsibilities among the lot of us. _I_ volunteered for the pleasure and delight of taking over our dear Guildmistress’s sennightly meetings with you.” Here the woman batted her eyelashes.

Merlwyb eyed her. “You have an ulterior motive,” she said, enunciating clearly for emphasis. “You _always_ have an ulterior motive.”

“I enjoy the faces you make when you are confronted with the stark reality that every single one of your arcanists is capable of rewriting the laws of creation but are, simultaneously, godsdamned lunatics who should be taken out back and shot.”

“I should start with you.”

“Start with aetherochemistry; they just invented a new plague.” Synnove took the top folder from the pile and slid it across the desk to the Admiral.

“Of course they bloody did,” Merlwyb growled, opening the folder and skimming the abstract on the first page. Dear gods, did they _really_ decide to mix malaria and consumption? Always so busy wondering if they _could_ they never bothered to consider if they _should_. She plucked her reading glasses from their usual spot, sliding them on as she turned the page to the formal report, written in the aetherochemistry department chair’s tiny, cramped hand. Absently, she said, “And no, we are not testing it on the faculty of the University of Radz-at-Han.”

Synnove pouted. For the first time that afternoon, Merlwyb cracked a grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synnove toes the line _just_ enough to keep from getting keelhauled. :3


	19. Fatigue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 18: Wilt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my tumblr as "[Aftermath](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187809553371/)" on September 18, 2019.
> 
> _WARNING:_ graphic violence, blood, injury

Krile shoved the glass bottle into Synnove’s face. “Drink,” she said, not unkindly.

Synnove cracked an eye open and groaned at the sight. “Oh, gods, please, no. Please, not the aether syrup,” she croaked out plaintively. The Highlander looked honestly distressed; a sight worsened by the ashen pallor of her skin.

Krile ignored the sympathetic pang in her chest, and instead shook the bottle for emphasis. She wasn’t going to budge on this; hells, she _couldn’t_ budge on this.

Synnove groaned again, but carefully leveraged herself up to a sitting position on the cot, grimacing only slightly; one of the assistant conjurers scurried over at Krile’s glare to help her, stuffing a few pillows behind her back for support. Synnove nodded her thanks to the conjurer, who went to tend to another patient, and then sighed heavily as she accepted the bottle from Krile, hands shaking with tremors. Synnove broke the seal and brought the bottle to her lips, pausing to take a deep breath. Another look of distress crossed her features—and Krile felt terrible all over again—before she pinched her nose shut, threw back her head, and _chugged._

Once the bottle was empty, she handed it back to Krile and hurriedly slapped her other hand over her mouth, eyes squeezed shut as she fought back nausea. A minute passed before Synnove finally dropped her hand, taking a heavy breath—and wincing as it pulled at the wound on her stomach and side. “Fuck,” she said in a tiny voice.

Krile placed the empty bottle on a low table and took Synnove’s hand in her own, patting it gently. “Already looking less like the walking dead,” she said quietly. “That’s your second; we got the first into you while you were still unconscious on the surgeon’s table. You’ll need to drink one in regular intervals, however, until we’ve got your aether levels stabilized again.”

Synnove closed her eyes, head dropping back against the pillows. “Hate that stuff,” she said.

She didn’t blame Synnove at all. Aether syrup was a vile concoction: a solution of water and sugar, mixed with a powder made from elemental shards of each aspect, boiled together until it was thick and viscous. It was sweet to the point of disgusting—even a notorious lover of sweets like Synnove couldn’t stand it, and more than one arcanist and thaumaturge and conjurer had choked trying to keep it down. But it was absolutely invaluable for staving off aether shock in mages who had been casting in a pitched battle for so long and for so hard their magic started eating away at their bodies for fuel, something not even the most potent ether potion could prevent.

Like Synnove, who had been practically catatonic from aether shock and blood lose in the short time it took to get her to the infirmary from where the viceroy had left her and the other Warriors of Light. Krile and Alphinaud had watched, terrified but unable to leave Y’shtola and Conrad as they pumped healing magic into them to keep them from bleeding out, as the quartet had desperately fought against Zenos yae Galvus, all for naught.

He had gone for Rereha first; Rereha could run and shoot a bow as well as any Seeker or Keeper huntress born to it, but Zenos had closed the distance nearly faster than Krile could _blink,_ drawing one of those damnable swords in a flash of steel. He had nearly severed Rereha’s arm entirely, and she had collapsed, bow dropping from her then-useless hand, screaming as blood poured from the wound, while Zenos turned and advanced on the others. Alisaie, bless her, had crawled forward and pulled Rereha to safety, getting a tourniquet around her upper arm and grimly keeping a vicelike grip on the enormous wound as she used what little skill she had in conjury to keep Rereha from bleeding out.

Alakhai had been the next to go down, thrown into one of the Reach’s canyon walls by Zenos with a sickening _crunch_. She had impacted on her left side, and by the time she had hit the ground, she had a concussion, a broken horn, elbow, and knee, a dislocated shoulder, and multiple cracked ribs. Vice Marshal Tarupin had managed to get a healing potion down her throat before shock settled in, and stabilized her left arm as best he could without being able to reset the shoulder.

Heron and Synnove had lasted the longest, but Synnove’s enormous aether reserves had been running dry after the long slog of a bloodbath the Scions had all fought through since the beginning of the imperial attack. Only Tyr had been left to guard her flank, and Zenos had almost contemptuously kicked him yalms out of his way. The carbuncle had been frantically charging forward when he had flickered out of existence with a shrill shriek of utter _terror_ as Zenos’s blade cleaved down Synnove’s side and towards her stomach, and she had dropped to the ground like a stone, arms pressing over the wound to no avail as blood seeped through her fingers. The only reason her gut wound hadn’t been worse was because _Heron_ and her plate armor and her now-broken shield had taken the brunt of it. Heron had stayed standing, just barely, gasping and clutching her sword in both hands, until Zenos broke her sword, too, and, apparently _bored_, quit the field.

Krile had first bellowed to the healers arriving with General Aldynn’s reinforcements to prep for aether shock; if Synnove was bad, then any surviving Resistance mages would potentially be worse. Then, she had shouted the triage order for the Warriors of Light, awful as it was to do: Rereha; Synnove; Alakhai; Heron. Once she and Alphinaud had been able to entrust Y’shtola and Conrad to the care of a cadre of Serpent conjurers—one of them possibly Kan-E-Senna herself, in a yellow Serpent uniform that made her less of an obvious target, if stress hadn’t possibly been making Krile see things—she had gone and forced a bottle of that damnable aether syrup down her own gullet, rolled up her sleeves, and marched into the infirmary to take over the care of her four friends. Alphinaud and Alisaie had followed, acting as her dutiful assistants. (Both had grimaced at the sight of the syrup bottles, too, but choked through drinking one each with no complaint.)

After a few long moments of Krile providing silent comfort, Synnove managed to say, “How’re the others? Can’t turn and look for ‘em.”

Krile gave Synnove’s hand another reflexive pat as she sighed softly. “Rereha will regain full use of her arm,” she began, “thanks in no small part to Alisaie. If she hadn’t gotten the tourniquet on so quickly and applied pressure to the wound, Rere might have either lost partial mobility or possibly even the arm entirely. Conjury took care of reattaching everything, but she’ll need lots of rest for the blood loss and the chance to let her bone and muscles and nerves finish strengthening themselves. She’s out cold for now in the next cell, for which we’re going to nag her about later; Vice Marshal Tarupin had to strip out of his chest plate for the healers to treat his own wounds and she missed the show.”

Synnove cracked a grin. “Oh, she’s going to be so pissed,” she said.

“Take her mind off that wound quite nicely, I think,” Krile agreed. “Alakhai’s getting her bones set before I start casting any healing spells on her, one of the Gridanians is taking care of that; getting the shoulder back in the socket while her elbow’s broken is best left to someone with bigger hands than I. We’re going to put her on the cot to your right once she’s in her casts, so you can grumble at one another to your hearts’ content.”

“’ppreciate it, Krile.”

“Of course, my dear,” she said, letting a bit of honest cheer seep through. “Heron’s asleep for now, too. We’ve got her wounds treated and dressed, nothing so bad we needed to move her up the triage lists for immediate care by a conjurer. She’ll keep until the worst is over.”

“For the best,” Synnove slurred, eyes starting to droop. “You know Heron, she’s such a worrywart she’d insist the conjurers see to someone else first even if she _was_ the worst off. Not likely to stress herself now.”

“Precisely my own thinking,” said Krile. “Heron’s in with Rereha, and Alisaie is sitting with them both; I told her to rest, but no doubt she’s going to be stubborn and try to keep watch. Alphinaud I sent off to nap, too, poor boy was looking like a hothouse orchid in the midst of Coerthas. Lyse has been running herself ragged; Arenvald arrived with the second wave of reinforcements and I told him to sit on her if he had to in order to ensure she slept. Conrad will be fine, he’s heartier than I would expect for a man his age; and Y’shtola…” She heaved a sigh. “The conjurers and I are in agreement: we’re keeping her in a coma to let her heal. It was…it was _bad._ Easily the worst of the survivors. She should be fine once she heals, but we’ll be treating her like a porcelain doll until she is.”

“Ooh, don’t tell her you said that when she wakes up,” murmured Synnove, eyes now closed. She had a very tiny smile on her face. “Shtola _will_ fight you on that.”

“I hope she will,” said Krile fondly. “I’ll be back in a bell to give you the next bottle of aether syrup; if you’ve stabilized enough after that one to my satisfaction, I’ll let you sleep a few more bells before the next one, all right?”

“’kay,” Synnove said, voice a whisper. “Thanks, Krile.”

Krile gave her hand one last pat. “You’re welcome, Synnove.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup. I officially made it worse than the original.


	20. Suffer, Promise, Witness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 19: Radiant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my tumblr as "[Carteneau](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187843124741/)" on September 20, 2019.
> 
> _WARNING:_ world-ending apocalypse, violence, mention of blood

Dalamud hung low and huge in the skies over Carteneau, pulsing with malevolent crimson light among the dark clouds that had shadowed Eorzea for moons. Synnove nearly couldn’t hear the din of battle over the dirge of aether throbbing in her mind, the same dirge that had haunted her every waking moment since the Mad Raven had drawn the second moon from the firmament. She still didn’t know if that damnable dirge was Dalamud’s aether, or the result of the moon poisoning the land’s own. Perhaps it was both.

The battle had finally turned in their favor upon the arrival of the adventurers who had been initially deployed to combat the Castrum Centri diversionary force. Synnove and her fellow arcanists had done their best as the signal corps, trying to coordinate the Maelstrom and pirate forces, carbuncles running from unit to unit to relay recorded commands and arcanists handling multiple linkpearl connections. But pirates were still _pirates,_ wont to do things on their own, and asking the Kraken’s Arms and the Sanguine Sirens in particular to work together had been, perhaps, _too fucking optimistic._ Never mind the disconnect of different tactics being used by the Flames and the Serpents. That the Alliance forces hadn’t been wiped out when the VIIth’s magitek reapers had taken the field was a damned miracle.

Somewhere in the distant heart of the Plains, Synnove could feel an enormous amount of aether slowly beginning to coalesce—Archon Louisoix, channeling the prayers of Eorzea to beseech the Twelve for aid. As she relayed the commands of the Maelstrom captain with whom she was working to the units under his command, she felt hope finally starting to spark in her breast.

The ground shook, suddenly, and Synnove whipped her head around to the direction from which it originated, staring in shock. In the distance, an enormous red….key, for lack of a better term, pulsing with blue aetherlight, had struck the ground. The dust cloud kicked up rose immediately into the air and began obscuring it, and even from here she could see that the force of the strike had knocked down allies and foes alike around it.

Then a roar of sound—a deep, resonant thunder of triumphant, all-consuming _rage_—engulfed Carteneau, drawing every eye skyward, to see Dalamud’s outer shell, glowing with more of that sickly blue aetherlight, cracking open.

And Dalamud _exploded._

The shockwave hit her first, throwing her and every other living being on the Plains still alive and standing to the ground with a force that punched the air from her lungs. The sound came next, shaking her bones and cracking the stone around her in an awful crescendo of combusting, howling aether. Her ears rang—or maybe it was just the screams of terror from every damned soul on the Carteneau killing fields all blending together.

The sky was aflame, and then the first of the pieces of Dalamud impacted the ground. Molten earth flew into the air, and then again from another impact, and another, and another, until the heavens and the earth were indistinguishable from how they both burned. Synnove desperately tried to sit up, feet scrambling to find purchase on the broken ground, as Galette and Tyr converged on her, eyes wide with fear as they tugged and pushed on her to get her upright.

When she gained her feet, the sky had cleared, and Synnove looked up again—and dearly wished she hadn’t.

A dragon loomed in the sky, bigger than _anything_ she had ever seen, bigger even than the corpse of Midgardsormr wrapped around the _Agrius_ in the middle of Silvertear Lake. Strange golden objects were clamped on its body—its head, its chest, shoulders, arms, legs, all of a design that looked vaguely Allagan to her horrified eyes. Its wings were spread wide and it threw back its head to roar once more, all of Carteneau—all of _Eorzea_—shaking as it declared its exultation, its fury, its _vengeance._

There was a book Synnove through which she had once carefully paged, wearing cotton gloves and a mask to prevent further damage, deep in the stacks of the Mealvaan’s Gate library, an ancient, decrepit tome that had been a copy of some even more ancient, decrepit original long lost to the passage of time. The script had been mostly illegible, the illustrations faded. But there had been one illustration, of a shape and color similar to the creature hanging above Carteneau, that had still been visible, its accompanying caption write large and bold in Old Eorzean, a single word:

** _Dreadwyrm._ **

That was now what hung in the skies of Carteneau, she was sure of it, freed after gods only knew how long.

Then the Dreadwyrm roared again and dove forward, turning the inferno into _hell._

Synnove gathered Galette into her arms, looking around frantically, still disorientated, Tyr pressed up against her hip. In the distance, she could see her unit had reengaged with a group of fanatic VIIth legionnaires; she couldn’t tell if the Garleans were attempting to flee through Alliance lines or actually continuing the fight. She reached up to activate one of her linkpearls, but each line she tried was static, dead and less than useless. Aetheric interference. She threw down the cuff in disgust.

Another topaz carbuncle, normal in size, suddenly leaped through a wall of flame, followed by its arcanist—Mhaslona, thank any of the gods that might be listening. Mhaslona skidded to a halt next to her, sliding on the gravel and dust, and Synnove caught her by the elbow to steady her, the pair of them swaying from the broken momentum. The Sea Wolf leaned down and shouted into her ear over the deafening roar of fire and splitting earth and draconic rage, “_Admiral’s command: Belay all previous orders! All Maelstrom units to fall back, effective immediately! Priority to the Foreign Levy! Main host to cover the retreat and bring up the rear!_”

“_Understood!_” Synnove shouted back. Her mentor clapped her on the shoulder and turned, racing off to the next unit with her carbuncle next to her.

Swallowing down her own pure terror, Synnove darted forward, jumping over broken ground to reach Captain Yarborough. The big hyur had to have a Highlander or roegadyn somewhere in his family tree, he was built like a buffalo and loomed nearly as tall as the Admiral, but he moved lightly on his feet as he threw a legionnaire yalms back with his axe and turned to meet her.

“_Full retreat!_” she roared over the din. “_Priority to the Foreign Levy, main host to cover the retreat!_”

“_Aye!_” the captain replied. “_Get to the ‘venturers, keep spreading the word, they didn’ have many o’ the arcanists with them!_”

She nodded, and the captain roared an order to his soldiers, who moved far enough out of the way for her to plunge through their line, Tyr following.

“Galette, I need your nose!”

The carbuncle warbled fearfully, but she dutifully jumped from her arms, racing among the wreckage of broken earth and magitek and bodies. Synnove followed as Galette’s nose led the trio to the first group of shaken adventurers wearing the armbands denoting them as Foreign Levy members, two of them carrying one of their friends between them. She slapped her hands on the elezen’s chest, pumping a _Physick_ spell into him as she yelled to his compatriots, “_Full retreat, main host to cover the Levy! Get out of here!_”

The elezen groaned awake, but he was able to get his own feet under him, as his friends shouted their acknowledgment, heading for the Maelstrom line.

She repeated it again, and again, and again, shouting the retreat order, casting _Physick_ when it was needed, until she stopped bothered keeping count of the number of adventurers she had met, even as the Dreadwyrm suddenly returned to the skies of Carteneau to strafe the field with his magic. Tyr helped her catch her balance when her footing gave way as she zig-zagged across the Plains; she stumbled over shattered boulders and bodies of Garleans and Eorzeans alike. Her big carbuncle added to the count, tackling stray VIIth legionnaires who emerged from the smoke and fire swinging a sword or gunblade to tear out their throats, growling and snarling his rage around their necks, as she and Galette raced to the next group of Levy members. She didn’t stop until she ran smack into Commander Rhiki and her unit.

“_We know, Mhaslona found us earlier!_” the miqo’te yelled to her. “_We’re the last ones out, come on!_”

Synnove didn’t bother to hide her relief as she joined the Commander’s soldiers, grabbing the arm of one of the limping adventurers to toss around her neck and help him move faster; Tyr grabbed one of the lalafell adventurers by the back of her shirt, and the exhausted woman didn’t bother to fight it, just sagged in relief. They raced back through the carnage, and through the smoke, she saw they had met with the line again at Captain Yarborough’s position. As they passed through the line, Commander Rhiki signaled to Yarborough.

“_All right lads, that’s it!_” the captain shouted, cupping his hands over his mouth to try and get his voice to carry as far as possible. “_Levy’s out! Maelstrom: FALL BACK!_”

The order was sent down the line, far beyond where Synnove could see anymore, and as smoothly as they could manage, staggering over uneven ground and the bodies of the dead, the soldiers of the Maelstrom pulled back, covering the adventurers of Eorzea as they made to escape the field.

The skies suddenly cleared, the clouds swept away with a beat of the Dreadwyrm’s wings. And then the heavens lit up, white and blinding as day, pillars of light surrounding the huge beast, before they as one plunged into the Dreadwyrm. Synnove turned to look over her shoulder, desperate hope filling her again as, far, far in the distance, a smaller but no less brilliant light shone over an outcropping of stone where stood Archon Louisoix as arcane sigils lit the night.

And then—then the aether _shattered._

There was no other word for it, the spell _broke,_ the aether losing cohesion even as Synnove could still feel it swirling and twisting. The Dreadwyrm’s rage knew no bounds as the white light of the Twelve was replaced by the red and orange and yellow of the Dreadwyrm’s own power, a huge spell of its own taking shape above it, until the spell filled the whole sky and the world shook with its echoing roar.

“_RUN!_” someone shouted. Synnove had no idea if it had been herself or one of the adventurers or Commander Rhiki or Captain Yarborough or someone else entirely. “_FOR GODS’ SAKE, RUN!_”

The orderly retreat turned chaotic as both the adventurers and soldiers lengthened their strides and ran for their lives. One of the adventurers swept up their injured friend, the one Synnove had been helping, into their arms, with another grabbing Tyr’s lalafell cargo, leaving Synnove free to reach down and snag Galette as Tyr galloped next to her. Her emerald carbuncle stuck her face in Synnove’s neck, crying and shaking with terror, as Synnove herself was propelled forward by an animalistic instinct of pure, adrenaline-spiked fear to _get the hells out of here._

She felt the aether used to summon the Twelve change behind her, but she couldn’t turn to look, too focused on moving forward, on placing her feet in spots where she wouldn’t turn an ankle or break her leg. The aether was being shaped, coalesced into something different, more potent, more purposeful. A spear of power and prayer and Light. And then it _slammed_ into the Dreadwyrm’s.

Synnove had one brief moment to act, and she used it to yell, “_EVERYONE, **DOWN!**_” Soldiers and adventurers nearest to her hit the ground, covering their heads, with many others following suit in outward waves. Synnove herself jumped on Tyr, pushing him down and covering both his head and Galette’s with her body as she frantically got her arms up over her own head.

The shockwave hit them. And then the soundwave, deafening her screams and the screams of everyone around her.

And the world went white and silent.


	21. Decadence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 20: Bisect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187863552631/) on September 21, 2019.

When Synnove turned around, closing the coldbox door and with cake pan in hand, she was met with the hungrily curious stares of both Galette _and_ Aymeric sitting at the kitchen counter. She yelped, nearly dropping the pan before she got her other hand under it. She turned a glare on both innocently blinking individuals and jabbed a finger at them.

“There are _rules_ in this house about sneaking,” she said.

“Oops,” said Aymeric, completely unrepentant. Galette giggled on the stool next to him.

Synnove grumbled good naturedly as she took the two strides back to the counter, opposite her lover and her carbuncle, setting the cake pan to the side next to an empty glass, a sheet pan, a pair of offset spatulas, a serving plate, and a towel. She picked up the small bowl of cream from the little warming device it had been slowly heating on top of for the past ten minutes, setting it in front of herself, and dipped a small spoon into the bowl, afterwards touching the spoon to her wrist to check the cream’s temperature. Warmed through but not scalding, perfect. She set the spoon down and dragged over the cutting board piled with finely chopped chocolate on it.

Aymeric set his chin in his hand, leaning on the counter as he watched her carefully slide the chopped chocolate into the cream. “What precisely are you making today, Synnove?” he said.

She scrapped the last bits of chocolate into the bowl with the knife she had used to cut it, before turning to set both knife and cutting board in the sink. “At the moment, chocolate ganache,” she replied as she turned back. She picked up her spatula and began stirring the chocolate-cream mixture.

Galette’s ears had pricked, standing straight up on her head like a hare’s as she vibrated with excitement. She chittered a question. _Chocolate ganache for what, Mama?_

Synnove smirked, but didn’t look up from her stirring. The chocolate was slowly starting to melt into the warm cream and she didn’t want any lumps in her ganache. “Oh, nothing special,” she drawled, “just a chocolate hazelnut cheesecake.”

Galette cheered, front paws tapping against the stool in delight. _YAY!_

Aymeric hummed thoughtfully. “Chocolate hazelnut?” he said. “I don’t believe that’s a combination of flavors that I’ve enjoyed before.”

Synnove stopped stirring. Galette stopped tappity-tapping her feet. Arcanist and carbuncle exchanged a look of disbelief, before turning to stare incredulously at Aymeric. He blinked back at them.

“Never had chocolate and hazelnut together?” said Synnove.

“Never.”

“Never ever?”

“Most assuredly never.”

A slightly worried yip. _Mama, stir the ganache._

Synnove automatically started stirring again, still staring at Aymeric. “Are you _sure?_”

He smiled at her and said, “My love, without a single doubt in my mind, I have never enjoyed chocolates and hazelnuts together.”

“This,” she said, “is unacceptable and needs to be rectified posthaste. Here.” She slid the bowl of cream and melting chocolate to Aymeric and held out the spatula. “Keep stirring. It needs to be completely smooth and glossy.”

He took the items with no complaint, stirring obediently. Galette’s nose twitched as the chocolate came closer, but her eyes reminded on Synnove.

Synnove, in turn, had spun around and stomped to the breadbox, opening it with a flick of her wrist and pulling out the fresh loaf she had baked early this morning after crawling out of bed. She picked up the bread knife next to the box and sliced off two thick pieces, stashing the loaf back in the breadbox once she was finished and setting the bread knife aside. Then she shuffled to the cupboards, opening the left most and sticking her hand in to rummage around with a clatter of ceramic for a moment before pulling out two small plates. Closing the cupboard, she placed the slices of bread on each plate, stomping back to her place at the counter and setting the plates down, muttering under her breath about sacrilege. She reached into the mess of jars of assorted ingredients she kept on the counter, snatching up one half-full of some dark, paste-like substance, opening the cutlery drawer at the same time to grab a butter knife before closing the drawer with a cant of her hip.

She held the jar up for Aymeric’s inspection. “Chocolate hazelnut spread,” she said, “made from the first crop of hazelnuts gathered in northern Gyr Abania this year.”

“Let me guess,” Aymeric said, voice dry, “your aunt’s home village?”

“Where else?”

“Snob,” he said fondly.

Synnove smirked, unscrewing the lid on the jar. She stuck the butter knife inside, taking out a large glob of the chocolate hazelnut spread balanced on the dull blade, plopping it on one of the bread slices before smoothing it out in a thick layer. She did the same with the second slice, then resealed the jar and unashamedly licked the knife clean, humming happily.

Aymeric _stared_ at her, pupils blown wide. Synnove gave him a lascivious smile and wink. Galette gagged.

“Oh, shush, you,” Synnove said to her carbuncle. She slid the plates forward, one in front of Galette and one in front of Aymeric, and took back the ganache bowl and spatula. She gave it a few more stirs, lifting the spatula slightly to test the consistency by watching it drizzle back into the dish, and nodded, satisfied.

As she set the ganache bowl aside, Galette was devouring her slice of bread, making happy noises and twitching her ears in delight as she got chocolate hazelnut spread all around her mouth. Aymeric lifted his own slice and took a large bite, chewing curiously.

Synnove knew the exact moment the flavors burst across his tongue. His eyes rolled back into his head just a bit, and he let out an absolutely _filthy_ moan she most often heard only in the bedroom. She met his gaze and leered at him, waggling her eyebrows.

Aymeric stared at her with wide eyes and swallowed. “That,” he said, licking his lips, “is _obscene._”

“Isn’t it just?” Synnove said sweetly.

As he devoured the rest of his snack as ferociously as Galette had, Synnove took the towel next to the cake pan and went to the sink, turning the faucet on and running it beneath hot water for a few moments. She wrung the excess moisture out, turning the faucet off, and stepped back to the counter to wrap the now-hot towel around the cake pan. As that sat, she dragged the sheet pan in front of herself, setting the glass top down in the middle, then reached over to press the towel into the sides of the cake pan for a minute before taking the towel away and balancing the cake pan on top of the overturned glass.

With a bit of careful wiggling, she slid the sides of the pan down and off the cheesecake, briefly lifting the dessert to pick up the siding and set it on the counter corner. That done, she peeled back the two strips of parchment paper wrapped around the sides that had prevented the cheesecake from adhering to the sides of the cake pan, revealing a light brown dessert with a dark chocolate cookie crust on the bottom. Galette and Aymeric both ‘ooooh’ed appreciatively.

Picking up the ganache bowl, Synnove poured the ganache directly on top of the cheesecake. The chocolate had cooled quite a bit already, so it merely pooled on top as Synnove scraped every last bit she could out of the bowl with her spatula. Finished with that step, she set spatula and bowl aside, and retrieved one of the offset spatulas. Carefully, she pushed the ganache with the spatula until it started to flow over the sides of the cheesecake, smoothing the ganache over the top and sides until it was evenly coated. When she was satisfied, she held out the ganache-covered spatula to Aymeric, who took the offering with obvious glee and set about licking it clean. She then slid the serving plate over and snagged the second offset spatula, picking up the cheesecake from the bottom with her other hand. She wiggled the offset spatula between the cookie crust and the bottom of the cake pan, slicing through to loosen it before sliding the cheesecake onto the plate. Synnove finally plucked the glass from the sheet pan and slid the pan to Galette, who immediately began to lick up all the spilled ganache on its surface.

As her two goofs enjoyed their spoils, Synnove fetched a chef’s knife from her cutting block and ran it under hot water from the faucet for a few seconds. She patted it dry, then returned to her cheesecake. With an elegant flick of her wrist, she cut a perfect line down the middle of the dessert, neatly dividing it into two.

Galette pointed with a paw and chittered. _That half is mine!_

Synnove gave her eldest carbuncle a Look. Aymeric covered a snort of amusement with his hand.

Galette blinked and yipped. _I meant what I said._

Synnove shook her head, chuckling, and with a few deft twists of the serving plate, the trained eye of a geometry-obsessed arcanist, and the steady hand of someone who drew perfect circles without a compass, cut four more lines into the cheesecake so it was divided into ten perfect slices. To Galette, she said, “Go get your brothers, _then_ you can have a slice.”

The carbuncle burbled, mouth still covered in chocolate hazelnut spread and crumbs and ganache, and jumped down from the stool, racing for the front door to fetch her brothers from the garden.

Synnove reached out without looking and smacked Aymeric’s hand away from the cheesecake. “No,” she said firmly.

Aymeric gave her his own Look. This one Synnove recognized as the one he usually had on his face before he pinned her to the bed and did things with his mouth that had her screaming his name. She felt a bolt of lust shoot her through her before she recalled what was at stake and narrowed her eyes at her lover.

“Nice try, honey,” she drawled. “But there isn’t any kind of sex you can give me that’s better than my cheesecake.”

Aymeric huffed, crossing his arms as he pouted, and Synnove just _laughed_ at him. After a moment, he reluctantly joined in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Nutella cheesecake is inspired by the recipe in [THIS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdK7FpJvsyo) video from HidaMari ASMR Cooking on YouTube. I fell down a rabbit hole and I have yet to emerge from it.


	22. Understaffed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 21: Crunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187878810001/) on September 22, 2019.

Cid waltzed into Synnove’s office, witty quip at the tip of his tongue about the engineering capabilities of arcanists, and stopped dead, blinking in surprise.

Synnove sitting hunched over her desk, in perpetual danger of one day developing scholar’s back, was not an unusual sight. The mountains of paper around her even less so. What _was_ unusual was that most of the paperwork was compromised of small blue booklets, and Synnove was moving line by line so quickly, making tick marks with a quill, that she couldn’t be reading essays.

What was even more unusual was how she wasn’t the only one camped out in her office. Keltgeim was sitting cross-legged on the rug in the ‘den’ area, more of those booklets piled around her. Starling had commandeered the overstuffed arm chair, legs stretched out in front of her and feet propped on the coffee table, the tip of her tail slowly waving back and forth.

And those booklets were _everywhere._

“What,” said Cid, feeling a flashback to the Magitek Academy lurk at the back of his mind, “the _hell._”

“Welcome to exam season,” said Synnove without looking up. “Pull up a spot and a stack of booklets and start checking answers.”

“Ahahahahaha, _no_,” he replied, weaving his way towards her desk. He idly noticed the enormous piles of blankets and pillows strewn around the couch on all sides; no doubt Synnove had been sleeping in her office again. Upon reaching her desk, he dropped the roll of blueprints he had brought with him in the only free space on the very edge. Synnove grunted a thanks to him, still not looking up.

Cid looked around critically. “New exam structure, I take it?” he said.

“Aye,” Keltgeim said, also without looking up from the booklet she was steadily ticking through. Now that he was closer, Cid could see that each of the women had a single, large sheet of parchment next to them, with five cramped columns of writing: a number, in ascending order, with a letter next to it.

He mentally smacked back the Academy flashback that _desperately_ wanted to overtake him. He made no attempt, however, to hide his horror when he said, “Multiple _choice?_”

“Some stupid idea by the department chairs,” said Keltgeim.

“One single end of year exam for the first years, combining all the collective knowledge they were supposed to absorb from their various classes,” added Synnove.

“What the _hell._”

“That’s what us vice chairs said.”

“With significantly more swearing,” said Starling.

“Did they by chance end up talking to the Magitek Academy professors at the last conference in Radz-at-Han?” said Cid, derision dripping from every word. “Because this kind of bullshite looks exactly like something that was instituted my last year there, and it reduced more than one student to tears.”

Synnove sat up straight, a deep frown marring her features as she obviously thought back. (Not that she would have been there herself; Synnove wasn’t allowed anywhere near the Thavnairian capital since it would result in a murder and a diplomatic incident, and not necessarily in that order.) Before she could respond, however, the door to the office burst open, revealing A’khebica, her carbuncle held in her arms. “We’re ready for the next set—oh, hello Mr. Garlond!” She waved brightly.

Cid immediately slapped a smile on his face for the benefit of the little miqo’te arcanist, then turned and nodded to her. “Hello, Miss Ginwa. How are you faring today?”

“Very well, thank you!”

Synnove pointed at a stack of booklets next to the door. “Right there, Khebi,” she said.

“Thank you, Miss!” A’khebica replied as she set her carbuncle on the floor. To her carbuncle, she said, “Void storage, please, Carby.”

Carby yipped affirmatively and stepped over to the stack of booklets. He nimbly jumped on top of the pile and laid down in a loaf shape. Then his ears twitched and he…_oozed_ over the sides, making a gods awful _SCHLORP_ing noise as he did. When he reached the floor, booklets vanished into whatever pocket dimension existed in his stomach, he sat upright and hiccuped once. A’khebica swooped him back up into her arms and darted out of the office with a wave.

Cid felt a little wild about the eyes as he slowly turned back around. “That will never stop being disturbing,” he muttered.

All three arcanists grunted agreement.

He shook himself, trying to physically banish the memory of Carby and his disturbing manner of existence, letting his gaze swept the room again. He frowned thoughtfully as he finally noted, properly, the size of the stacks of those infernal booklets. “All right, I’ll bite,” he said. “There are far more booklets then there are first-year arcanists.”

“Multiple-day exam,” Starling said.

“We’re also triple-checking the corrections,” said Keltgeim. “We’re on first pass, then Khebi runs the books down to Halulu and Yjra’s group, then _those_ get passed on to another; I can’t even remember who’s in that one.”

“And that’s just the _multiple choice,_” said Synnove, voice icy. “Then there’s the _short answer,_ which we still haven’t started on. That was _another_ two days of testing.”

“Synnove, to quote you: what the absolute living fuck,” said Cid, not bothering to hide his revulsion.

She waved her free hand at him. “I know, I know, but the chairs wouldn’t listen and poor Thubyrgeim got sick of being harassed about it, so she threw up her hands and gave them the go ahead. The grading wouldn’t be so bad, each of the professors in the Guild was to grade a set amount, but—”

Cid grimaced. “But then that typhoon rolled through the fishing grounds; I heard the talk about it in Hawkers’ Alley on the way in.”

“So, we’re literally on the most bare-bones staff while more than half the Guild is with the Rescue Fleet,” said Synnove, finally letting her exhaustion through. She rubbed her eye and blew out a long breath. “We’ve got three more days to get all the grading done and we can’t pull the assessors off inspection because we’ve still got merchants coming into port."

Cid nodded thoughtfully. He was genuinely sympathetic; this was truly a mind-boggling amount of work. But he also distinctly remembered the last time he had agreed to help Synnove with a project of this magnitude, and it had ended with him having to do a cold turkey detox after subsisting on her terrifying blend of Death Wish coffee for a sennight. He was _not_ doing that again, nooooo thank you. So he turned on his heel and made to head for the door, saying as he did, “Well, good luck! I have my own never-ending pile of paperwork back at the Ironworks.”

“Stop _right_ there, Garlond.”

He automatically froze in place, one foot still raised; that tone of absolute _menace_ was not to be disobeyed, his hindbrain said. He set his foot down and turned to look over his shoulder.

Synnove was pointing her quill at him. “You dropped the blueprints off yourself,” she began, tone as icy as a Coerthan blizzard again, “so that means you’re either all caught up or trying to escape Jessie’s tyranny. I _should_ rat you out to her, but I need bodies more than I need schadenfreude.”

“Jessie,” said Cid, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows pointedly, “isn’t _that_ effective a threat when you’re as terrified of her as I am. You dropped the ball the last time you tried that, as I recall.”

Synnove narrowed her eyes and ground her teeth together. Cid smirked at her.

Point to himself.

After a long moment of just _staring_ at him, an evil grin overtook Synnove’s features. She glanced over to Starling and made a single sharp, almost dismissive looking motion with her hand. Starling kicked one of the piles of what Cid had _thought_ been discarded pillows and blankets mostly hidden by the back of the couch; an annoyed grunt sounded and the person who had apparently been laying partially beneath it, and out of his line of sight, sat up.

“What,” Nero Scaeva said in a flat tone. He had one of those infernal booklets in hand, a thin stick of graphite in the other, and a pair of buds in his ears with the wires leading down to a miniaturized magitek orchestrion tucked into the front pocket of his jerkin. His gaze landed on Cid and his eyebrows rose as he looked Cid up and down coolly, before Nero sneered, “Ah, Garlond. Shirking your duties to both the Ironworks _and_ your friends, I see.”

Cid turned to look at Synnove, furious and horrified and more than a little bit impressed. “You degenerate barbarian,” he said admiringly, accepting a stack of booklets and an answer key that Keltgeim shoved at him. “Where did you even _find_ him?”

“That’s for me to know and you to not find out,” said Synnove cheerfully. “Now, chop-chop, Garlond, the sooner we finish the multiple choice, the sooner we finally get started on the short answer. Your aetherophysics theory is atrocious, but you can at least help with the mathematics sections.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keltgeim belongs to [tehjai](tehjai.tumblr.com), Starling belongs to [wanderedaimlessly](wanderedaimlessly.tumblr.com), A'khebica and Carby belong to [chaemera](chaemera.tumblr.com), and Yjra Fex belongs to [cyborgsurprise](cyborgsurprise.tumblr.com)! All were used/mentioned with permission.


	23. Farewell, and into the Inevitable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 22: Free Write | Adieu
> 
> Spoilers for Shadowbringers MSQ through the level 77 quest _Crossraods._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187890219116/) on September 22, 2019.

The sea of unending light should have put the hairs up on the back of her neck, after spending so much time on the First. Light in this excess, usually, was a portent of vile things. But unlike the blinding white of the sin eaters, of the Lightwardens, of the Flood itself, this light was yellow and warm, like sunshine. Like _Ul’dahn_ sunshine.

Like home.

Rereha blinked rapidly as the Oracle of Light spoke to Minfilia. Just an eyelash getting where it shouldn’t. Yep. Just an eyelash.

And then the Oracle looked over to the four Warriors of Light-turned-Darkness and smiled. “Dearest friends,” she said, “no words can express my gratitude to you for keeping her safe in these tumultuous times.”

She rested a gentle hand on little Minfilia’s shoulder, and then walked forward to meet them, still aglow with the soft, warm light of Hydaelyn’s power. She hugged Alakhai first; the standoffish Xaela latched onto her immediately, gently knocking her horn against the hyur’s cheek, and the pair rocked from side to side as they used to do back in the solar of first the Waking Sands and then the Rising Stones. If the Oracle said anything, or if Alakhai did, Rereha couldn’t hear it, but then those two had rarely needed words to communicate. When they drew apart, Alakhai’s eyes were suspiciously bright and she sniffed hard, just once.

The Oracle held up her arms up as she approached Dancing Heron, grinning impishly. Heron swooped the Oracle right off her feet, and the Oracle laughed, bright and happy. Her laughter turned into a delighted whoop as Heron stepped back two paces for room and spun her around, three times, before slowing and setting her back on her feet. Tears streamed down Heron’s face, but she was smiling, and she bent down at the Oracle’s gesture so the Oracle could kiss her brow.

Synnove was already quietly sobbing when she accepted the Oracle’s embrace, wrapping up the smaller woman in the biggest bear hug the Highlander could manage. The Oracle stood on tiptoe and gently patted her on the back, humming soothingly, as Synnove cried into her hair, the carbuncles clustered around them and rubbing against the Oracle’s shins and thighs. She murmured something to Synnove, who responded with a watery, heartbroken laugh.

“I make no promises. He deserves an ass-kicking,” said Synnove as she drew back. She reached up to wipe at her eyes and added, “I’m going to name two theorems after you.”

The Oracle laughed softly. “Then at least promise to make them proper brain teasers,” she said, leaning down to give each of the carbuncles a scratch behind their ears. All three whined, bumping their heads against her hands.

“Done,” said Synnove. She sniffed again, lower lip wobbling dangerously, and Heron drew her into a one-armed hug.

And then the Oracle was kneeling in front of Rereha, arms spread wide. Rereha gave up trying to be a stoic badass Warrior of Darkness, and dove forward into the hug, sobbing even harder than Synnove had as the Oracle wrapped her arms around her. The Oracle hummed to her, too, as she stroked Rereha’s hair, the tune recognizable as a popular Ul’dahn lullaby.

“I’m sorry I never got to finish telling you all the stories I said I would,” said Rereha between hiccupping sobs.

“It’s all right,” the Oracle murmured to her. “How could you have known our time as friends would be cut so short? You’ll just have to tell them to Minfilia. Promise?”

Rereha nodded vigorously as the Oracle helped set her back on her feet. “Promise,” she said, crossing her heart. Then, because it was important to _say_ the words, to speak them into the world so there could be zero doubt: “We love you, Ascilia.”

The Oracle of Light stood and smiled at Rereha and her friends as they nodded agreement. It was the same gentle, radiant smile with which she had first greeted them all those years ago. “I love you, too; all of you,” she said, the bright glow of her soul growing stronger as she spoke. “You are heroes to us both. But not even the most valiant heroes can stand alone. Only _together_ may you change the fate of two worlds.”

And then the light enveloped them all, and Ascilia Warde was no more.

* * *

Rereha squinted against the poison Light of Amh Araeng’s skies, rubbing her eyes to try and chase away the spots from her vision as well as the last of her tears, then wiping her face with her sleeve as she sat upright. Tears and snot, never a fun combination. She looked around, heartsore but also (and the pun was inevitable) lighter in spirit than she had been in a long time.

Alakhai and Heron and Synnove were pushing themselves up to their feet around her, brushing sand from themselves (with Heron handing a still-sniffly Synnove a tissue to blow her nose, which the Highlander obediently did). Galette had draped herself around Synnove’s shoulders, hanging listlessly, Tyr smooshing his face into Synnove’s stomach, his heartbroken whines still audible, and even Ivar’s ears were drooped and dragging on the ground. So that was nearly everyone accounted for.

Where was Minfilia?

Rereha looked around frantically, and finally stopped the young girl collapsed near a set of partially buried stairs. She hurriedly got to her feet and sprinted towards her. “Minfilia? Minfilia! Are you all right?!”

Minfilia, thank the Twelve, was already pushing herself upright with a groan as Rereha reached her, the girl shaking her head as she regained her bearings. “What happened?” she said. “I remember speaking with Minfilia…and then…”

Rereha was _staring,_ even as the rest of the group ran up. Minfilia raised her now-red head, revealing grey-blue eyes. She blinked as she took in Rereha’s dumbfounded expression, then glanced around at the others, who no doubt wore similar looks.

“Is something wrong?” Minfilia said, hesitant and worried.

Rereha opened and closed her mouth—and then smiled, as big and bright as she could manage. “Your hair has changed,” she said. “Now you really _do_ look like a fox kit!”

And then she darted forward to engulf Minfilia in the biggest hug she could manage with such damnably short arms. Minfilia started in surprise, then smiled, and returned the hug as the other Warriors of Darkness knelt down to join in.

_We’ll take good care of her, Ascilia,_ Rereha thought. _That promise will be easy to keep._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me in the tags of the prompt post when I reblogged it: I'm gonna make all of you cry again.  
My followers: DT NO  
Me: DT YES
> 
> Also guess what song I had on repeat while writing this. ;)


	24. Research

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 23: Parched

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187912125296/) on September 23, 2019.

Synnove scanned the shelves with a scowl, tugging on a pair of soft cotton gloves as she did and pulling the soft mask up onto her lower face. Where was it, where was it… Ahah! Finally spotting the tome she was looking for, she moved the ladder over, kicking the brake down to lock the ladder in place. She climbed the rungs up to the sixth shelf, carefully wiggled the book free—the librarians always seemed to put one book too many on the shelves down here—and proceeded back down the ladder.

Tome held carefully in her hands, Synnove briskly walked through the stacks to one of the tables in the center of the room. She set the book carefully in the stand built into the table and reached over to turn up the light on the aetheric lamp she had brought with her. Satisfied, she sat down and slowly opened the cover.

The leather creaked dangerously, but it held. Synnove slowly let out the breath she had been holding, the mask preventing it from spilling onto the book itself, though she still tilted her away from it, just in case. She finished opening the book all the way and began gently lifting the first pages to turn to the table of contents.

This deep in Mealvaan’s Gate, beneath the seafloor of Galadion Bay, Subbasement Ten should have felt cold and damp and clammy. Instead, it was warm, the enormous room’s humidity carefully controlled, with an air _and_ water tight seal on the exits that meant if a disaster occurred somewhere above, the books it contained would remain safe until the arcanists could retrieve the room’s contents. This was the Arcanists’ Guild Esoteric Library, housing the oldest books in the Guild’s collection, most of which had been donated from private collections when the arcanists of Limsa Lominsa had formally founded the Guild at the Admiral’s request.

Many of the newer books were housed in the smaller libraries upstairs, closer to the workrooms and lecture halls. The Esoteric Library itself had been built to preserve those books that had been decaying from age, from humidity, from sunlight, from salt exposure, from the wear and tear of being handled by generations of master arcanists and their apprentices. La Noscean weather was a joy if one was a person, not so much if one was a book.

Synnove scowled again as she gently ran her gloved finger down the table of contents. Nothing helpful sounding there. She closed the book, then turned it so the back cover faced outward and opened it, remaining as gentle as possible despite her impatience. When the leather stopped angrily creaking at her for disturbing it, she began perusing the dry pages again, this time in the index.

After five minutes of squinting at tiny handwriting, at one point bringing her aetheric lamp so close to the page she had a brief of moment of panic that the ambient heat would ignite the thin, delicate parchment, Synnove set her lamp aside. Sat back in her chair. _Swore,_ viciously and creatively for a solid three minutes. Then finally sighed, slouching down in her seat until her head was atop the chair’s backrest.

Son of a bitch, that had been the last chance she had of finding what she needed here in Limsa Lominsa. _Damnit._

She knew it had been a long shot; while the Guild set aside a significant portion of its budget to acquire grimoires and codices of any age it could get its grubby, knowledge-hungry hands on, they were still building the collection. The topics in all these books were wide-ranging, but there were still gaping holes throughout, big enough through which one could navigate the _Victory._ She had just hoped what she needed wasn’t smack in the middle of one of those void-sized holes.

Synnove sighed heavily, staring up at the ceiling. If she focused hard enough, she could hear the symphonic hum of the aether batteries two levels down in Subbasement Twelve. She let the sound of all that aspected aether in her mind soothe her as she thought.

Her two best bets of where to find what she needed were either in Ul’dah or Radz-at-Han. The Conjurers’ Guild in Gridania was…not an option. Despite her reputation, and possibly even going to the Elder Seedseer herself, Synnove had zero doubt she would be denied permission to browse their Bibliothèque, even if she was confident some overzealous hearer hadn’t destroyed the records of what she was interested in generations ago. (And she wasn’t.) Aymeric, bless him, would no doubt throw open every library door in Ishgard if she asked, from the Athenaeum Astrologicum to the Greater Library of the Vault to the Scholasticate to every House library in the city and then some. But the Orthodox Church had had such a stranglehold on information in the city-state for so long that she would probably have better luck finding her missing puzzle piece in Gridania.

So that left the Deep Archives of the Thaumaturges’ Guild or the Library of Aetheric Chrestomathy at the University of Radz-at-Han.

Synnove grimaced. The dean of the university _owed her_, but the less she had to deal with the Hannish, the better, if only to avoid setting <strike>a certain someone</strike> something on fire. And it would take longer than she liked to go through the formal channels of requesting, receiving, and gaining access to their restricted sections, too.

No, it was time for a trip to Ul’dah. At least the thaumaturges could be counted on to save every last diary, theory, and scrap of detail over the centuries regarding the forbidden, the esoteric, and the downright mad in their quest for ever greater power. The guildmasters were a bunch of cackling idiots, but she had grown up with them. If throwing her weight around as the vice chair of the Arcanists’ Guild aetherophysics department and a Warrior of Light didn’t get her what she wanted, she’d call in Rereha and make the brothers’ lives _miserable_ for a bell or three.

Sighing, Synnove pushed herself to her feet. She gently closed the book, returning to its designated shelf, and climbed the ladder to put it back in its home, wincing as she wiggled it into place—seriously, they needed to have words with the librarians, the books did _not_ need to be crammed together like this, there was plenty of room down here. Once she had climbed down the ladder, lifted the brake and rolled the ladder back to the end of the aisle, kicking the brake back down. After fetching her aetheric lamp, she headed for the exit, pulling off her cotton gloves and the mask as she did and then depositing them in the ‘used’ bin by the door.

She shut the lights off behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don't have a damn clue what Synnove was researching. Maybe it was something related to one of the RP plots I took part in...


	25. Oh, Hells No

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 24: Unctuous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187933379376/) on September 24, 2019.

Synnove wandered into the mess hall in the late afternoon, yawning and rubbing her eyes with one hand with Galette tucked under her opposite arm. Gods, she needed to just get a proper bed installed in her office, that couch was getting to the point where it would destroy her back sooner rather than later. At least that sleepy tea kept her sufficiently knocked out she didn’t notice the twinge in her lower back so much.

She set Galette down at their usual table; the emerald carbuncle settled on the bench, tails arranged around herself, and proceeded to groom her face. Synnove gave her ears a scritch, covered another yawn, and shuffled to the mess line to see what was for dinner, grabbing one of the larger trays as she did. The dinner rush hadn’t yet begun in earnest, so she had the line to herself for now and the time to peruse it.

Simple fare tonight, but always delicious: assorted vegetables tossed in olive oil and salt before being roasted until they were nearly caramelized; cod and haddock poached in butter and cream and dill; slices of roast buffalo with gravy for those in the mood for a richer entrée; barley soup and clam chowder as soup options; and hot, fresh bread. For herself, Synnove picked out roasted red peppers, a slice of the roast buffalo with a heaping helping of the gravy, and a bowl of the chowder. For Galette, a medley of the vegetables, a haddock filet, and a cup of barley soup. And, of course, thick slices of the bread, upon which she roughly spread some butter.

She slid the overflowing tray down the line to eye what they had for desserts; she usually came back for those once she and Galette were finished with dinner, but it was always best to have an idea of what was on offer. Hmm. Caramel custard, chocolate cake with what looked like strawberry buttercream, stone fruit and whipped cream parfaits…

…Was that pudding?

Synnove blinked and peered closer, brow furrowing.

It _looked_ like a custard-style chocolate pudding, at first glance. And it…probably was? But there was something _wrong._ Pudding shouldn’t separate like that. Or be that chunky. Or have a scent. Well, a stench. Or… All right, seriously, what the fuck.

“What the fuck,” she said out loud, not bothering to temper the disgust coloring her voice.

Whastrach, the mess hall’s chief cook, looked up from slicing vegetables, and winced when he saw where she was standing. He set his knife down and wiped his hands clean on the towel hanging from his apron belt before striding over.

“Do not eat that,” he hissed quietly. “I can’t toss it while the lad is still here.”

“The lad—oh no,” Synnove hissed back, shoulders dropping in despair. “How did Arthur get on the mess rotation? We keep him out of here for a reason!”

“Filling in for a sick classmate,” said Whastrach. “I managed to get him over to helping with the dishes, but he was so excited to help with the desserts I didn’t have the heart to tell him no.”

Synnove groaned quietly. Arthur was a good lad, always willing to do more work than he had to, but he could _not cook for shite,_ even though he kept trying. Oh, gods, what a waste of perfectly good chocolate. “Pudding shouldn’t look like that!”

“I know!”

An excited chirp. _Pudding?!_

Synnove turned to look over her shoulder, startled, to see Galette racing towards her, eyes gleaming with anticipatory delight. The carbuncle leaped gracefully onto the serving line next to her, ears and tails twitching in delight, though she was careful not to get them into any of the food. Galette leaned forward towards the desserts, sniffing excitedly—

—and went completely rigid, fur bristled so much she appeared to double in size. She jerked backwards, so sharply and so suddenly her head almost seemed to pull back into her body. Her expression warped into one of horrified disgust, ears pinned flat to her skull and tails drooping, as she stared down at the cups of chocolate pudding.

A single yip. _Nope._

Galette turned and jumped down from the counter, fleeing back to hers and Synnove’s table at a brisk walk. Yip yip yip yip yip. _Nope nope nope nope nope._

Whastrach and Synnove exchanged wide-eyed looks, staring at one another with slack jaws, before they both _broke_. The big Sea Wolf hurriedly clamped both hands over his mouth as his shoulders started to shake, a high-pitched, whistling wheeze escaping him. Synnove bit down on her lower lip so hard she nearly drew blood, barely managing to keep the cackling laugh that wanted to come loose to soft snorting snickers instead, and held her shoulders and arms stiff to keep from knocking off the food on her tray.

It took a solid five minutes before Synnove had herself under enough control that she felt confident enough to pick up her tray and bring it back to the table. Poor Whastrach, however, had doubled over, forehead pressed into the counter, hands still over his mouth, stifling his own snorting laughs. He got strange looks from the baby arcanists starting to file in and heading to the beginning of the mess line for dinner.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Whastrach,” Synnove managed to wheeze out before walking off. Whastrach shoulders _heaved,_ and he dropped one hand from his mouth to pound his fist on the counter, a hysterical giggle breaking loose. She had to halt suddenly and lock her knees, biting down on her sore lip, to fight through the next round of laughter that _that_ reaction elicited.

Synnove eventually took her seat at her table, lips still twitching, and placed the various parts of Galette’s dinner before her. As she did, the carbuncle turned to look up at her.

Galette chattered at her worriedly. _Please no pudding for dessert tonight, Mommy._

Synnove just barely managed to keep from descending into a fit of her own hysterical giggles when she choked out in reply, “No pudding, Galette.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arthur O'Donnell belongs to [starsandauras](starsandauras.tumblr.com) (same username here on Ao3!) and was used with permission.
> 
> Special shout out to my friends Jai and Chaemera, who, when I said what the prompt for the day was in our Discord server, both immediately went "SOMETHING GALETTE WON'T EAT." :P Collaboration is excellent.


	26. Of Taunting and Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 25: Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187953477556/) on September 25, 2019.

_Knock knock a-knock—knockknock!_ “Guess who~.”

A loud groan answered her. “Go away, you debauched scandalmonger!”

Rereha poked her head into one of the private rooms of the Rhalgr’s Reach infirmary, wicked grin firmly in place. “Now, now, Mr. Scaeva, is that any way to speak to the lady come to relieve your unending boredom?” she drawled.

The former tribunus laticlavius of the XIVth Imperial Legion raised his arm, hand up and middle finger extended, without lifting his head from his pillow.

Rereha cackled and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her. A disgusted sigh came from Nero’s direction, and he flopped his arm back down on the mattress with a characteristically overdramatic wave of his hand. She grabbed a chair sitting by the wall and dragged it behind her as she waltzed towards Nero’s bed, the wood shrieking angrily against the stone of the floor, and whistled a cheery little ditty deliberately out of tune. She could see his jaw clenched in annoyance as she set the chair up near the head of the bed and cackled again as she hopped up into it. She placed the book she had been carrying on her lap and folded her hands primly on top of it, beaming.

“How are we feeling today?” she chirped.

“Like I’ve been run over by a flock of rabid chocobos.” Nero stubbornly refused to open his eyes, instead folding his hands on his stomach in unknowing mirror of her. “And then sat upon by a buffalo.”

“That’s an improvement! Last time you said you felt like you’d been chewed and spat out by an enraged king behemoth!”

“Rereha,” he sighed, still not opening his eyes. “_Why_ are you here? Garlond and Greywolfe are infinitely more stimulating conversationalists, for all their damned sanctimonious self-important morals and _ethics._” He spat out the last word like it was a particularly loathsome curse.

“I’m hurt, Nero,” said Rereha, placing her hand on her heart. She pitched her voice to express layers of emotion: disappointment, regret, sadness. “Genuinely hurt. A friend of mine has been grievously wounded in the course of his attempts to safeguard not just Eorzea, but Hydaelyn as a whole from an interdimensional entity of vast and unfathomable power. I come in my spare time to bring some light and laughter to his dreary hospital room as he heals, and he insults me and wishes for the company of others.”

A long silence descended over them both. Finally, Nero arched one golden eyebrow and cracked an eye open to stare at her incredulously.

Rereha pursed her lips together and said pensively, “Laid it on a bit too thick, didn’t I?”

He raised his hand and held his forefinger and thumb a quarter of an ilm apart.

“Damn,” Rereha said, crossing her arms. “Ah, well. But to answer your question: Synnove has been banned by the healers because you two inevitably end up attempting to violently murder one another and you reopen your wounds.”

“A disagreement in scientific methods—”

“Nero, shh, shh, shh, stop. You had your hands around her neck and Synnove had her thumbs pressing into your eyeballs, okay, I was _there._” She reached over and patted his arm. “She was hoarse for three days, by the way, good job on that.”

Nero smirked.

“You two are _such_ siblings,” said Rereha, ignoring his sudden gasp of outrage. “It’s adorable and gross at the same time. And Cid is banned because you two inevitably end up yelling at full volume and then devolve into furious making out and you reopen your wounds.”

“Slanderous _lies,_ woman, we do _NOT_ “make out,” how dare you imply any sort of relationship with that blue-blooded, idiotic—”

Rereha smiled pleasantly as he ranted at her, with Nero going so far as to push himself upright to properly yell into her face. She merely leaned forward and around him to fluff up his pillows so he had a proper backrest. Once he finally ran out of steam and he flopped back into the pillows, fuming and out of breath from shouting, she said, “Just remember: I want to be your best woman at the wedding.”

“You’re an enervate churl and I hate you,” growled Nero. His cheeks had turned blotchy red from temper, truly an unbecoming look with his complexion.

“You’re just upset I wasn’t able to sneak any banana pudding by the healers today,” said the enervate churl, finally opening the book in her lap. “Now, you’ll mind your cheek if you want me to keep showing up and reading Eorzean folktales to you.”

Nero grumbled and crossed his arms as he leaned further into the pillows, glaring at her mutinously even as he obviously made himself comfortable. Rereha grinned at him. The Garlean finally huffed a sigh and made a _get on with it_ gesture.

‘_Point to me_,’ Rereha gleefully thought as she flipped to where they had last left off in her favorite book of folktales. She let herself relax, sliding into the storyteller’s headspace, and pitched her voice to lilting and throaty as she began:

_“In the times of Sultana Yuyuli Belah Yuli, there lived in Belah’dia a poor porter named Sesebaba Fafababa, who on a very hot day was sent to carry a heavy load from one end of the city to the other. Before he had accomplished half the distance, he was so tired that, finding himself in a quiet street where the pavement was sprinkled with rose water, and a cool breeze was blowing, he set his burden upon the ground, and sat down to rest in the shade of a grand house…”_

When Rereha glanced up a little later, nearing the end of the First Voyage of Sesebaba the Sailor as the legendary mariner invited Sesebaba the Porter to return the following night for another feast and to hear more of his adventures, Nero had his head leaning against the headboard, staring up at the ceiling with half-closed eyes as he intently listened. He wore a small, genuinely pleased smile.

Rereha grinned to herself, pleased as punch, and, without pause, segued into the beginning of the Second Voyage of Sesebaba the Sailor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nero is _such_ an asshole, but I love him. He's a fungus. And yes, Rere gets along with him--same taste in theatrics. His commentary about the Deltascape bosses also inspired a headcanon that for all that he's a man of science, he still fondly recalls the folktales and stories of his youth and that he has a weak spot for those in other lands, too.
> 
> The text at the end is from what's basically the preface to "The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor" of the _One Thousand and One Nights._ The version I read is found [HERE.](https://fairytalez.com/seven-voyages-sindbad-sailor/) (As a note, this version calls the porter "Hindbad," which is probably to reduce confusion, as in the original tale, the porter is _also_ named Sindbad, and part of Sindbad the Sailor's reasons for inviting the porter to the feast and sharing the tales of his voyages is due to amusement at them sharing a name, which I decided to preserve.) Ul'dah generally works pretty well as a fantasy analogue of the Arabic world, though of course it's by no means a one to one categorization, so I decided that Ul'dah no doubt has its own cultural significant collection of folktales and that at least one folk hero had to be the equivalent to Sindbad!


	27. Paperwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 26: Slosh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/187985031381/) on September 27, 2019.

Kan-E-Senna signed off on the last of the reports from the Botanists’ Guild, setting it on top of the pile of other Guild reports on her right and straightening them into a neat stack, corners sharp and precise. She nodded in satisfaction; spring planting had gone well, and the summer storms had created new deadfall the botanists and carpenters were already putting to good use. Fufucha had included a map of locations in the Twelveswood where they would likely need to fell more trees and clear the underbrush to ensure the forest did not choke itself competing for light and water, and that Kan-E insured was at the top of the pile.

The matter of _which_ sites at which to log, at least, was an issue she could present to the Seedseer Council at tomorrow’s meeting, along with the rest of the Guilds’ assorted business. The Hearers hadn’t had something over which they could properly bicker in a moon and she could tell the more combative members of the Council were itching for a proper argument. She could sit back with E-Sumi-Yan and Raya-O with her tea and listen to the firebrands of the Council work out their vitriol in a productive manner before they returned to the grind of managing Gridania’s day to day affairs.

Speaking of tea…

Kan-E poured the last of her mint and lemon verbena tisane, setting the pot aside and picking up the delicate, pale green porcelain of her cup, holding it in both hands. She breathed in deeply, letting it out again in a long sigh of contentment, as the last of the warmth from the tisane seeped into her fingers. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

In the back of her mind, the Twelveswood thrummed. As Kan-E sipped her tea, she let her awareness spread outward from Gridania and into the rest of the Shroud, murmuring greetings to the sleepy elementals that rose up from their dreaming long enough to acknowledge her presence. She said hello to the mighty oaks and gentle willows, the friendly maples, the wise old pines that guarded the northern edges of the Twelveswood that climbed into Coerthas and Abalathia’s Spine. The rivers and streams laughed and burbled their delight, the wildflowers sang, the earth itself sighed and rumbled as the wind above wheeled and danced through the canopies.

She took a few moments to soothe an upset water elemental fretting over the passage of some of the local fishermen at the Mirror. This elemental was, thankfully, still young and growing into its power, not yet set in its ways, amenable to trying to understand why mortals did what they did, and the explanation was accepted without fuss. Kan-E breathed a quiet sigh of relief; it was always so much easier managing the young ones. Even for her, the elder elementals like the Great One were so ancient and alien in their thoughts that translation was difficult.

She finished her tea and drew back her awareness, until the Twelveswood was once again just a background hum and not her whole existence. Kan-E blinked her eyes open and sat up, feeling refreshed, ready to continue the drudging monotony of paperwork. She set her cup aside next to her pot and took the first of the reports from the stack on her right.

The seal of her Order of the Twin Adders stared back at her.

Kan-E pursed her lips. “More tea first, I believe,” she said to herself. And best make it ginger; her Serpents—well, one in particular—had the poor habit of inducing ulcers in both herself and her officers. Sometimes even when they actively tried to avoid doing so.

Rising from behind her desk, she picked up her tea pot, the same delicate green porcelain as her cup, and strode from her office in the Adder’s Nest. She nodded to her secretary as she passed, making for the small kitchenette she and the senior officers used for brewing tea and storing snacks.

She cleaned her teapot first, scooping the used mint and lemon verbena leaves into the compost bin, then rinsing the pot and the built-in strainer. Next, she retrieved the kettle from its shelf, filling it with fresh water and setting it to heat on the camp stove. (Quite a helpful little device invented by the engineers of the Blue Badgers, powered by fire shards; she needed to remember to ask Grand Marshal Brookstone how feasible mass production would be.) As the water heated, she rolled up her sleeves—no formal robes for a day of paperwork, though she still wore her crown of office—and fetched the grater and a ginger root. She used the grater’s rough end to grate the ginger directly into her teapot, the pieces not so fine that the strainer wouldn’t catch the them. Once she had a little over a tablespoon of ginger in the pot, she cleaned the grater and blotted the root dry, wrapping the latter in a piece of wax paper and storing it in the coldbox.

The kettle began whistling, and Kan-E wrapped a towel around the handle before picking it up. She poured the steaming water into her pot, setting the now-empty kettle aside, and placed the lid back on the pot. Carefully picking it up, she swirled it three times as her mother had once taught her, gently mixing the water and grated ginger, breaking up any clumps so that it all began to properly steep. Before she left the kitchenette, she added a generous dollop of honey directly to the pot, plus two lemon slices fetched from the coldbox.

By the time she was back in her office and retaking her seat, the ginger tea had sufficiently steeped enough that the first cup was palatable, though not yet quite as strong as she preferred. Fresh cup poured and in hand, she steeled her spine and opened the first report from the Serpents.

Her shoulders dropped in relief. Unit rotation and deployment to Castrum Oriens and the Ala Mhigan front in the Ghimlyt Dark. Oh, thank the Matron.

The report pile diminished quickly, as did the tea within her pot. Troop movements, intelligence reports, plans for the upcoming war games with the rest of the Eorzean Alliance, management of the stalemate with the Garleans. She was a military commander by necessity, not inclination, but she had grown comfortable enough over the years to sink into the rhythm of reading reports, noting down questions or clarification requests for Grand Marshal Brookstone, signing where needed, and moving on to the next folder.

There was one last cup’s worth of ginger tea in the pot and one more report on her desk. She dragged the report forward, and read the name of the commander.

_Serpent Captain Rereha Reha._

Kan-E took a long, deep breath and held it for ten heartbeats. She then let it out again for another ten, slow and measured. Finally, she slumped backwards in her chair and, mindful of her horns, carefully thunked the back of her head against it three times.

“Shite,” she said.

Against her better judgment, she leaned forward, opened the report, and began to read.

She was two pages in when she sat back once again, poured the last of her tea, and drained the cup in one long pull. Then, raising her voice so her secretary could hear her, Kan-E called out, “Nuala? Please fetch Grand Marshal Brookstone. And a very _large_ pot of ginger tea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of my edits included some headcanons my friend Chaemera and I bandied about trying to make Kan-E-Senna and Gridania less bland (though we're both definitely on the "if you look below the surface, Gridania is SUCH a Lovecraftian horror location" boat). We also firmly believe Kan-E swears _a lot,_ just usually in her own head--or in the middle of meatball surgery trying to keep one of her Serpents alive.


	28. Briefing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 27: Palaver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my tumblr as "

Synnove fought to keep her eyes open and bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from yawning. This was, without question, the single most boring war games briefing she had ever had the displeasure of attending. Even Ivar, who adored learning about what ways he could be a destructive fiery menace _with permission_, was asleep on her lap, sprawled on his back and left hindleg twitching as he dreamed.

She couldn’t even take out her pliers and raw gemstones and copper wire and keep her hands busy crafting simple jewelry. Nooooo, she was the _aetherophysics department vice chair,_ she had to put on a good example for all the baby arcanists. Even if most of them were dead asleep themselves.

Not for the first time, Synnove wished she had told Torsefers and Thubyrgeim to take a long walk off a short pier when they had approached her about the vice chair position.

With a deep, quiet sigh, she shifted in her seat. They had commandeered the largest lecture hall in the Gate for this, of course, since so many arcanists would be participating in these war games. And the seats were _fine,_ just…not comfortable after two bells of monotonous droning and who knew how much longer to go. Good _gods,_ where had they gotten this sergeant? He hadn’t even stopped for questions like a proper briefing _should_ have; saving them for the end was counterproductive, it was too easy to lose one’s train of thought, and asking the right questions at the right time could avoid problems further done the line. And he still hadn’t gotten to what roles the arcanists would be filling. _Gods._

Synnove barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes and shifted again, crossing her legs; Ivar grumbled but didn’t wake up. She glanced out of the corner of her eye to her right.

Starling was asleep. She had to be, even with her eyes still open; the white-haired miqo’te’s breathing was too deep and regular for her to be conscious. That was a little creepy, but an excellent skill to have, and Synnove was immensely jealous. A nap would certainly put her in a better mood.

On Synnove’s left was A’khebica. Bless her heart, she was actually taking notes, complete with diagrams of how the Maelstrom units were being deployed. But even Khebi couldn’t manage to keep entirely awake with the toneless drone echoing throughout the room; her head kept nodding forward, chin dipping towards her chest, every few minutes, before she caught herself, sat ramrod straight, and went back to writing.

Immediately in front of her were Yjra, Keltgeim, and Nemene, the trio all slightly slouched down in the amphitheater-style seating so they didn’t completely block the view of their peers in the row immediately behind them. To nearly anyone else, Yjra probably looked studious with a textbook on small group tactics propped up in her lap. From her angle, however, Synnove could see the viera turning the pages of a ten-gil dreadful tucked into the textbook, clearly enjoying the story with how quickly she turned pages and how tense her shoulders gradually became with building excitement.

Neither Keltgeim nor Nemene, however, were bothering to appear to be paying any attention to the briefing. Kelt had somehow managed to cross her legs mostly comfortably without knocking into the heads of anyone sitting in front of her, and had a star chart resting against her bent knee. The roegadyn had a separate sheet of paper on top of the star chart, upon which she was rapidly doing calculations with a thin graphite stick; hmm, figuring out seasonal constellation shifts, it appeared. And at a _very_ precise level; Synnove would ask her later why she need to know the exact position of the Navigator’s Jewel at a specific bell on the fourth day of a given moon.

Nem was performing actual witchcraft with a needle and thread. Synnove unabashedly stared for a few minutes, watching the elezen create an intricate piece of decorative lace in the shape of a blooming rose. She had only ever seen Nem work bobbin lace or crochet lace before, rather than needle lace, but the elezen was just as frighteningly fast and efficient with this method as the other two.

Shaking her head, Synnove glanced elsewhere around the hall. Arthur, X’ondarya, Halulu, and one of the tonberries from aetherochemistry—Kopel, perhaps, she didn’t know the aetherchem tonberry delegation very well—were playing Meracydian Ratscrew, more quietly than she had ever seen the game done, but by the look of things, a deck had already been consigned for later ritual burning. Thubyrgeim was sitting dead center at the very bottom of the amphitheater, and Synnove, off to one of the sides, could see her expression frozen into a polite smile, eyes staring directly ahead and completely zoned out, the same as the three department chairs arrayed on either side of her. Save for one or two others that were doing similar to Khebi, it appeared damn near every arcanist asked to participate in these war games was not paying attention to the briefing.

Synnove narrowed her eyes as she stared at the diagrams laid out on the blackboards at the front of the hall. She hadn’t paid them much attention earlier, figuring once the sergeant had gotten to the explanation of what the arcanists would be _doing_ among all the Maelstrom units, they would finally be useful. But she _recognized_ those deployment patterns.

…Oh. Oh, _that’s_ why this was boring as shite.

“Sergeant,” Synnove called out, voice echoing in the amphitheater with furious annoyance. Multiple people jerked awake, and near every face in the room swung around and down or up to look at her, including the sergeant, who appeared irritated at having been interrupted. Well, fuck him. “Have you kept us here for,” she checked her wrist chronometer for emphasis, “_two and a half bells_ and _still _have not yet gotten to the point that for these war games, we will be fulfilling _only_ the same role we did at the Battle of Carteneau as _the signal corps?_”

The sergeant’s jaw worked for a moment, mouth opening and closing, before he said in that _awful,_ toneless voice, she had come to loathe, “The arcanists will be matched with designated units—”

“Vice Chair Greywolfe asked you a yes or no question, Sergeant. Now _answer it._” Thubyrgeim’s voice cracked like a whip. Synnove felt a vicious grin overtake her face. Ivar scrambled to sit upright in her lap, leaning forward to brace his front legs against Keltgeim’s shoulder so he could see.

“…Yes.”

There was a moment of dead silence in the hall as everyone stared down at the sergeant, expressions running the gamut from surprised to disappointed to upset to disgusted. Then Thubyrgeim stood from her seat, and clapped her hands together. “Arcanists,” she called out, “you are _dismissed,_ with my sincerest apologies for the waste of your good time.”

The guildmistress turned her baleful gaze on the hapless Maelstrom sergeant. He had enough sense to quail where he stood. “The Admiral,” said Thubyrgeim icily, “will hear about this.”

Multiple delighted cackles echoed through the room, Synnove’s loudest among them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guild Squad roundup! Starling belongs to [wanderedaimlessly](wanderedaimlessly.tumblr.com), Khebi belongs to [chaemera](chaemera.tumblr.com), Yjra belongs to [cyborgsurprise](cyborgsurprise.tumblr.com), Kelt belongs to [tehjai](tehjai.tumblr.com), Nemene Boann belongs to [redhawkfg](redhawkfg.tumblr.com), Arthur belongs to [starsandauras](starsandauras.tumblr.com), and X'ondarya Mitnu belongs to [ravenclawnerd](ravenclawnerd.tumblr.com)! Everyone was used with permission. :D


	29. Routines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 28: Attune

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/188024683466/) on September 29, 2019.

The first few times they had cooked together had almost been disasters. On top of simply not knowing where many of the tools and food items were stored, Synnove’s kitchen was smaller than Aymeric was used to, and equipped with different utilities. In addition to a woodfire oven—as Synnove had once told him, bread just didn’t taste the same cooked anywhere else—there was the stovetop powered by fire shards, a coldbox chilled by ice crystals, and even a sink with running water. Synnove had similar issues first operating in the Borel Manor kitchen, although in her case it had been adjusting to the idiosyncrasies of ovens and pumps and open fireplaces that were nearly as old as the whole of Ishgard itself.

In fact, it had at first been easier to adjust to one another in combat than in the kitchen. The Warriors of Light were seasoned adventurers, used to adjusting their tactics on the fly to both the enemies they fought and the other adventurers with whom they sometimes allied. Synnove herself was an arcanist fully trained in all the areas in which the assessors of Mealvaan’s Gate were required to have competency, including small unit combat tactics with Yellowjackets with whom she might not have previously worked. And Aymeric, as Lord Commander of the Temple Knights, was quite inured to the chaos of combat himself, especially since well-laid plains rarely survived first contact with the enemy.

In the Vault, they had fought together seamlessly. In the kitchen, they had nearly set it on fire. _Twice._

So, it had been a bit humbling to relearn spatial orientation with one’s lover in a cramped kitchen without dropping a pan or fumbling a knife or running into one another. Never mind the carbuncles under foot.

Now, though, breakfast—and lunch, and dinner, and baking for dessert—was a well-practiced choreography. This particular morning, Aymeric briskly whisked the egg mixture for omelettes as a pair of skillets heated on the stove behind him, one containing cooking pancake batter; a lowly simmering pot of milk, maple sugar, and tea leaves sat on the back burner just behind the skillets. Synnove, meanwhile, finished prepped the usual assortment of fillings their little family preferred: sautéed spinach that Aymeric had cooked, the pan it had been prepared in now in the sink waiting to be cleaned later; aldgoat cheese, blue cheese, and brie; roasted red peppers, sliced into neat strips; cured ham, diced into cubes; fresh tomatoes from the garden. In between filling prep, she flipped pancakes or removed them to a plate off to the side and poured another helping of batter into the pan. The carbuncles watched from their seats on the other side of the counter, chittering excitedly.

Synnove slid the cutting board with all the filings in neat piles or little bowls onto the space next to the stovetop, murmuring a quiet, “Behind you,” as she moved. She cut a small pat of butter from the stick laid in a dish on the countertop, dropping it into the empty skillet and giving it a quick stir as it began to sizzle and coat the surface, then moved on to the coldbox and opened the door to rummage inside. As she did so, Aymeric turned and poured some of the egg mixture into the pan, setting the bowl down and picking up a spatula.

Humming as she came back behind him with another verbal warning, Synnove placed the jar of maple syrup in the middle of the counter. Aymeric could _hear_ Galette vibrate with excitement, rattling her stool as her front feet did a happy tappity-tap dance.

“Ivar, what type of cheese did you want this morning?” said Aymeric as he flipped the omelette onto the other side. While he waited for the facedown side to finish heating through, he grabbed a small bowl of chocolate chunks, adding a small amount into the pancake currently cooking. He handed the bowl to Synnove as she came up beside him, and she hummed her thanks while picking up her own spatula and flipping the pancake.

An excited chatter. _Aldgoat and brie, please!_

Aymeric picked up the bowl of aldgoat cheese from the cutting board, dropping two heaping spoonfuls of it onto one side of the omelette, then placed a thick slice of the brie on top of it, followed by two generous handfuls of ham. He folded the omelette over and, absently accepting the plate Synnove handed him, shoved the spatula beneath it and deftly plated it. As he turned to set the plate in front of Ivar, Synnove dropped a fresh butter pat into the omelette skillet.

Ivar cheered. _Thank you!_

“Very welcome, Ivar,” said Aymeric, returning to make the next omelette, pouring out a much larger portion of whisked egg than he had for the first.

Synnove removed the chocolate chip pancake from the skillet and poured more batter along with adding the chocolate to it, then came around the counter to cut Ivar’s omelette’s into neat bites. “Hot sauce, honey?” she said.

_Yes yes yes please please please!_

Chuckling, Synnove quickly darted to the coldbox, retrieving a jar of a bright red substance. She unscrewed the lid and grabbed a spoon, scooping out the concoction of pureed blood and dragon peppers, garlic, onion, and white vinegar onto Ivar’s omelette.

Ivar cheered again. _Thank you, Mama!_

Synnove scratched him behind the ears and returned the hot sauce to the coldbox. Ivar didn’t start eating just yet, merely set his paw on the plate and radiated heat to keep the omelette warm.

As she took her place back at the stove, removing the first pancake onto a serving platter and adding the batter for the next, Aymeric muttered, “That stuff is a weapon of war waiting to happen.”

Synnove snickered and elbowed him gently. “Spice wuss,” she said.

“That’s not _spice_ anymore, love, that’s _pain,_” he replied, affronted. “How you still have a functional sense of taste is a miracle for the ages.”

“It’s not like I eat it with _everything!_” Synnove said with a laugh.

“No, just what’s most horrifying,” said Aymeric. “Tyr, the usual?”

A very excited maow. _Please!_

Breakfast preparation like that continued in the same vein, Synnove and Aymeric weaving around each other and to the counter as they bantered, or worked in companionable silence. Omelettes for all of them—everything except the ham for Tyr; aldgoat cheese, spinach, and roasted red peppers for both Galette and Synnove; blue cheese, brie, tomatoes, and ham for Aymeric—plus the huge stack of pancakes, fully half of which had chocolate chips. When only one more omelette needed to be made and the last of the pancake batter sizzled away in its own skillet, Synnove took the pot of simmering Ishgardian-style tea from its burner, pouring the mix through a sieve into a ceramic pitcher and placing the pot in the sink to clean later.

Once everything was finished—stovetop turned off, used pans set aside to deal with after eating, pancakes portioned out to everyone (the chocolate chip ones for Galette and Synnove, the plain for the boys), cups of tea at every place setting, omelettes and pancakes neatly cut into bite-sized pieces for the carbuncles—Synnove and Aymeric finally sat down themselves. Synnove was kitty corner to the carbuncles, Aymeric on the stool across from them.

“_Bon appétit,_” said Aymeric, holding up his fork. Synnove clinked hers against it with a laugh.

The carbuncles all cheered, digging into their own breakfasts at last. Synnove and Aymeric grinned at one another, hooked their ankles together beneath the table, and did so as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got nothing to add, except you're welcome for the fluff and food porn, this is your last reprieve from FEELINGS. >:D


	30. Antonomasia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 29: Free Write | Identity
> 
> _Antonomasia, noun: the substitution of an epithet or title for a proper name._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my tumblr as "[Names](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/188034650966/)" on September 29, 2019.
> 
> Spoilers for Shadowbringers MSQ through the end of the second half of Amh Araeng.

She wondered, sometimes, if her parents had had another name for her, one carefully considered and picked after much thought and debate. Would she have been named after a relative? A grandmother, perhaps, or a great-aunt, or even a close family friend. Perhaps a name from a story, one that had caught her mother’s fancy, or maybe something her father had heard in the marketplace. Was it a name they had always called her? Was it a name they had whispered to themselves in the dead of night after the soldiers of Eulmore came for her?

Or, from the moment of her birth, with a tuft of blonde hair on her head and fathomless cerulean blue eyes, had she only ever been _Minfilia?_

To General Ran’jit and the soldiers of Eulmore, she had only ever been _Minfilia_ or _Oracle of Light_ or, more simply, _Oracle_; perhaps, _my lady_ to the nervous new recruits or the respectful veterans. _Lady Minfilia,_ to the servants who came to her luxurious prison deep beneath the City of Final Pleasures with food or fresh laundry or a set of books (approved, and censored as necessary, by Ran’jit, or more likely by one of his lieutenants). Once, when she had been presented to Lord Vauthry when she had been…eight? Perhaps nine summers? She had been addressed as _Lady Oracle_ and oh, she had _hated_ it, the way the words oozed off Vauthry’s tongue, condescending and triumphant. It was something to call a pretty caged bird.

But it had not been incorrect. She _had_ been a pretty caged bird.

The superfluous titles had mostly fallen away after Thancred had stolen her away from Eulmore and Ran’jit possessive grip. _Oracle of Light_ became, primarily, not a term of address, just a description of who and what she was. _Minfilia_, though…

That name suddenly acquired a new weight.

To Thancred, and Urianger, and Y’shtola and Alphinaud and Alisaie, _Minfilia_ was someone else, first and foremost. They had known the first Minfilia, the original, the savior from another world who had willing given up her identity and her life to save Norvrandt from the Flood of Light.

When Ran’jit, and many other residents of Norvrandt, looked at her, they saw a symbol and a legacy, an unbroken line of girl-child warriors against the rapacious threat of the sin eaters, born to fight and die and do it all over again in the next life. When Thancred looked at her, he saw regrets and missed chances, the shadow of a woman for whom he had wished he had done more. Urianger looked at her with sorrow in his eyes, too, but that never stopped him from speaking kindly to her, to throwing open his library to her voracious appraisal.

It wasn’t until the Crystal Exarch brought the Warriors of Light of the Source to the First that she began to truly like herself as her own person.

Rereha had accompanied her for their share of the chores the pixies give them in Lydha Lran. After the third bit of ridiculous busywork, she had been tired and frustrated, and ready to scream. As one of their pixie ‘hosts’ gave the pair their third task, however, she remembered a story she had read in Urianger’s library, from a book of Lakeland fables.

“I’ve never had to weed a garden before,” she had said earnestly, making her eyes as big as possible, her expression as innocent. “Could you show us how to do it properly?”

Rereha took her cue from her, the dwar—the _lalafell_ smiling and nodding agreement. “Aye,” she had said, “we don’t want to make a mess of the beds!”

The pixie had narrowed their eyes at them, before slowly nodding. “Well, all right then,” they said, “you need to go about it _this_ way. See, you pull from the base of the plant—”

And after the pixie had shown them how—

“All right, we need to ensure we get all the roots,” she had said, nodding to indicate her understand. She had then made to grasp one of the sprays of bluebells.

“No, no, no!” the pixie had screeched in horror; behind them, Rereha had slapped both hands over her mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. “Not _that_ one, that’s not a weed! Here, _these_ are the weeds—”

And she had done the same, playing the sheltered little Oracle (not difficult, to be fully honest) again, and again, until the chore had been done, and neither she nor Rereha had lifted a hand to do it themselves. The pixie had sulked as their friends had whooped and laughed and lauded her for a trick well played.

As they had gone to rejoin the others, Rereha had said, “That was _brilliant,_ Minfilia!”

She had blushed and shrugged, suddenly shy and unsure once again. “I had read about something similar, once,” she said, “a story about a fox named Reynard outwitting his foes and tricking his friends and laughing the whole time.”

“Well, you might not have been laughing,” Rereha had drawled, grinning all the while, “but that was well done, little fox kit.”

Synnove had been the next to give her a nickname, on the journey back to the Crystarium. The older woman had been patiently answering her questions about the Source, about arcanima, about the carbuncles. How did she make them? Were all carbuncles so intelligent? What other things could they do? What did they _eat?_

“Technically, anything,” Synnove had laughed. “As aether constructs, they don’t have the digestive system of a beastkin. But they _do_ have their own individual senses of tastes, and the resulting preferences, so in addition to what I cook for myself, I try to make something they’ll each like, as well.” She had gently stroked Galette’s tails, the emerald carbuncle draped around her neck and dozing. “Be careful with this one, duckling, she’s got a sweet tooth the size of a mountain and no shame in getting her next fix!”

She had tilted her head curiously at Synnove as they had walked. “Duckling?”

“It’s something I call the baby first year arcanists,” Synnove had said, a rueful smile on her lips. “The braver ones follow the senior assessors and professors around like ducklings, quacking questions and gobbling up the answers like bread crumbs, though their shier classmates trail along, too, listening just as intently. If you don’t want to be called that—”

“No!” she had said, then almost immediately ducked her head. “No, I don’t mind. I rather like it, actually. I like the idea of being a student.”

Synnove had smiled, warm and gentle. “Well, then, so long as you don’t mind, I'll count you as a duckling.”

Her third nickname had been straightforward. A few days of walking under true sunlight in Il Mheg and then Lakeland back to the safety of the Crystarium, followed up by wandering all the sights the city provided had turned her pale skin bright red and achy. Dancing Heron had come across her in the market, taken one look at her miserable expression, and hustled her to Heron’s room in the Pendants.

“Oh, poor Sunshine,” the roegadyn had said ruefully, braiding her hair and pinning it up and out of the way before helping to slather her face and shoulders in a thick, clear salve called _aloe vera_. “You aren’t the first person here in the Crystarium to get a sunburn.”

She hadn’t reacted to the name, mostly because like the others, she _liked_ it. It was just about _her._ She had also had more important things on which to focus. “The sun can _burn_ you?” she had said, absolutely horrified. Too much time outside, beneath unrelenting Primordial Light, could eventually cause damage to one’s skin or eyes, but it worked much, much slower than _sunlight_ apparently did.

Heron had laughed. “Aye, it can! Too much of a good thing can quickly turn bad, even the sun. Pale skin especially is more susceptible, but even someone as dark as I am needs to be careful; on _you_, at least, it’s easy to see when the damage occurs! Synnove and Rere have been showing the folks at the Mean how to create sunscreen—that’s a cream you put on your skin that helps prevent a burn from happening at all. In the meantime, we’ll get you a wide-brimmed hat, and you’ll need to keep putting on the aloe vera. That’ll soothe the burn and the itch when the skin starts healing, and keep your skin moisturized, too.”

Oh, the itch had been _awful._ And the peeling skin had just been…gross. Utterly, revoltingly gross.

But…Sunshine. Something warm and pretty and welcoming, but also dangerous if ignored, even if perhaps that hadn’t entirely been Heron’s intention with the moniker. She liked the dichotomy. She liked it quite a lot.

Alakhai, of course, had eventually given her a nickname, too. The Xaela was quiet, in the way of someone who simply preferred not to talk, at least not when it wasn’t necessary. In the shadows of the Rak’tika Greatwood, Alakhai had shown her a few more knife tricks, the proper way to bend and flick her wrists and arms and shoulders to get her knives to _dance._

“Thancred’s good with his blades,” Alakhai had said quietly, demonstrating the movement in slow motion, “and he didn’t do half-bad training you. But he hasn’t been as short as you or I in a long time, _g__ünj,_ and there are just some things he can’t properly demonstrate.”

She heard ‘günj,’ but in her mind, thanks to the Blessing of Light, she knew the word meant _princess._ It had slipped out, the same way it had with Synnove and Heron’s nicknames for her, tinged with soft, genuine affection, and again, she had decided not to draw attention to it.

Instead, she went through the move Alakhai had just shown her, slowly at first. When Alakhai nodded, she did it again faster, and then once more at full speed, her knives driving into the target at neck height on an adult male hume with the right and at kidney height with the left. Good enough to down a bandit or the very least but most numerous of a sin eater horde.

Alakhai had grinned, proud and vicious at once, limbal rings glowing brightly beneath the Greatwood’s shadowed boughs. “Very good, _g__ünj_. Now, again, and again, until it’s as second nature to you as all the rest of your katas.”

It had been those nicknames, bestowed on her without a second thought, for a girl they had barely known, that had helped sustain her through Amh Araeng, when the doubts began to eat at her and who she actually was. Those nicknames, that were just for _her,_ that rang in her head when the first Oracle of Light, the first Minfilia, had asked her what her choice was. When she accepted the chance to be her own person.

Red hair and grey eyes. A surge of power, of Light that was gentle and warm and healing. A purpose, and the determination to carry it out. A mischievous fox kit, a curious duckling, a ray of sunshine, and a knife-wielding princess.

Thancred, after they had vanquished the Lightwarden of Amh Araeng, had taken her aside privately and said, “There are no words to express the depths of my sorrow for how I’ve treated you these last years. I _will_ do better. I hope one day you will be able to forgive me, but know that you don’t have to. Not now, not ever, should you so choose. That’s my burden to bear.”

She had thought he had hated her for so long that hearing him speak so kindly and softly to her was _strange._ But he had been sincere, in both the apology and the caveat she did _not_ have to forgive him. She knew she could continue to trust him, at least, and as for the forgiveness…

She suspected the forgiveness would come, eventually, when she was ready.

After all, he had given her a _name._

And as Ryne well knew, names were precious, powerful things indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell I love Ryne?


	31. The Sunless Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 30: Darkness
> 
> Spoilers for Shadowbringers MSQ up until the second half of Kholusia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my [tumblr](https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/188054661881/) on September 30, 2019.

Four Lightwardens were dead, their crackling glass and shattered porcelain Light contained in Synnove. Tomorrow, they would march on Kholusia for the last of the Lightwardens of Norvrandt and return the night sky once and for all. But tonight, the Warriors of Darkness fled out into the mountains that surrounded Lakeland, for a ritual they had long been unable to indulge and was just for _them,_ and brought their brother-in-arms with them. The flew through twilight until the Warriors of Darkness found a large, flat plateau, far to the northwest of the Crystarium, so far in fact that the Crystal Tower was just the barest sliver of blue on the horizon, as the last of the sunlight gave way to blackest night. As they landed their chocobos on the plateau, Ardbert walked into existence next to them, whistling cheerfully as he looked around.

“Desolate, isolated, little to no chance of untimely interruptions,” he said. “Very nice, ladies.”

Synnove slapped him on the shoulder with a grin and handed him Ivar, collecting Chantilly’s reins and walking after the others with Tyr at her heels and Galette around her neck. Ardbert cuddled the ruby carbuncle closer, scratching under the construct’s chin, as he followed the Highlander; Ivar purred loudly in delight, one of his hindlegs involuntarily kicking out. Ardbert chuckled at him.

They settled the chocobos down for the night first, the four of them creating a wind break for their riders. Each chocobo was unsaddled, feathers groomed into place, then fed and watered. Then as the chocobos laid on the ground in makeshift nests, legs and feet beneath themselves, blankets tucked around them to stave off chills—and Chantilly’s beloved flyer’s shaffron buckled under her beak to keep the mountain winds from blowing it away—the giant birds all settled down to sleep with content little kwehs. Meanwhile, their people and one ghost chattered.

“Oh, come on, _a king behemoth_? Synnove, I know you’re not precisely _sane_—”

“He was a sweetheart and was lonely and just wanted a cuddle! You went mad after a century of isolation, imagine what five thousand years is like!”

“Wait until you hear the story about the coeurlregina.”

“That enormous monster cat that lives in Dravania?! One of her kittens damn near ate Lamitt in one bite!”

“The very same.”

“Wicked _white._”

The discussion continued throughout the setup for dinner. Rereha and Alakhai set up the kindling they had packed, placing a ring of stones around the makeshift firepit from the scattered rocks about the plateau. Ardbert held Ivar forward, the carbuncle obligingly belching out a lick of flame that ignited the logs and sticks, then gestured with Ivar still dangling from his hand as he argued axes versus swords with Heron and Synnove began setting up the pot for dinner.

“Now a good two-hander I could understand, that’s got a nice heft to it—Synnove, you’ll need the turmeric and cumin for that recipe—”

“I got it, I got it, you nag.”

“—and once you get your momentum going swinging around something that big, you’ve left yourself open for a reprisal. No, sir, I like keeping my feet firmly planted exactly where I like them.”

“Oh, come on, Heron—”

Ivar went back to sleep even as Ardbert kept gesticulating with him.

Dinner went as expected: as Synnove minded the stew, occasionally rubbing at her chest, with Ardbert peering over her shoulder and muttering about proper spice ratios—

“Ardbert, I swear, you are worse than my aunt.”

“And if you’re going to make a proper Nabaath stew you need to add _more turmeric,_ do it right now.”

“Alakhai, smack him for me, please.”

_WHACK!_

“Ow!”

“Thank you. My pot, my stew, now _back off,_ dead boy.”

—as Heron and Rereha got into a heated discussion about the last game of _Founders of Tanac_ they had played. Alakhai simply sharpened her knives and shook her head at all of them and their ridiculousness. Tyr loafed next to his mama, ears twitching every now and then, while all that could be seen of Galette was her tails sticking out from the bottom of Synnove’s coat, the emerald carbuncle having burrowed into its depths when the wind kicked up.

More banter over dinner—

“Branden named himself _Dark Heart,_ just how extra were you lot trying to _be_?”

“You say it yourself all the time, Rere: go big or go home.”

“There’s big and then there’s _melodramatic._”

—and yet more through cleanup. Then after banking the fire, the Warriors of Darkness crawled into their bedrolls, while Ardbert sat on one of the makeshift benches they had set up using the larger rocks, Ivar curled up in his lap while his siblings burrowed in with their mama. They all stared heavenward, at the jet-black sky spangled with rivers of stars; it was a new moon, so only the stars lit the world.

“And now, Ardbert,” said Rereha with a great amount of satisfaction, and an expansive gesture despite laying down, “it’s time for that most time-honored tradition: Make Your Own Constellation.”

“Let me guess, that one over there is supposed to be a pair of breasts?”

“You get me!”

Ardbert stuck his tongue out at her, the spectral glow of his soul making it easy to see. Rereha cackled at him.

“How about this,” said Heron, the ever-exasperated peacekeeper and group mother, “we’ll point out the shapes we see—_no genitalia or secondary sexual characteristics, Rere_—”

“Why must you always ruin my fun, Heron?”

“—and you tell us about the constellations that _were_ recognized back before the Flood and that you can remember, Ardbert.”

He scratched his chin. “Sounds fair. Nyelbert could have named them all, and told you all the stories about them besides, but I’ll do my best.”

“Alakhai, you start,” said Heron.

The Xaela hummed thoughtfully, then pointed to a string of three stars next to a half loop of four more. “That looks like a bow to me,” she said.

Ardbert tilted his head thoughtfully, leaning back on one hand as he followed where her finger indicated. “Well, not bad, Alakhai,” he said. “Already nailed it. That’s actually one of the old ones, Chorra-Mai’s Bow. Legendary mystel huntress; Renda-Rae knew all the stories about her. If you follow the string a little further along,” he gestured with his finger, dragging it ‘up,’ “that big blue beauty the upper limb of the Bow points to? That’s Ronka’s Tear; same as your Navigator’s Jewel, that’s the one star you can always use to find your way home.”

“Oh, I like that,” Alakhai said with satisfaction. “Maybe there’s a few stories in one of those books at the Cabinet.”

“Could be, could be.”

“Synnove next,” said Heron.

Synnove took a bit longer than Alakhai, studying the sky intently as she gently stroked Tyr’s head. Finally, she pointed out a cluster of stars roughly east of Chorra-Mai’s Bow. “Amaro,” she said. “There are the points for the head, the chest, the wings, and the tail.”

“Huh,” said Ardbert, blinking in surprise. “I can see it. Oddly enough, I don’t think any of the star charts _had_ an amaro constellation. That’s a shame. But you’re not far off from a Norvrandt one, though: excluding the ‘head’ star, that’s the Manticore.”

“…That is _not_ a manticore,” said Synnove, once again rubbing her chest.

“Maybe not an _Eorzean_ manticore,” he said wryly. “But the ones of Nabaath legend? Head of a hume, body of a lion, tail of a scorpion.”

There was a long moment of palpably horrified silence, eventually broken by Rereha: “Respectfully: what the _fuck._”

“Don’t look at me, blame my ancestors!”

They continued like that for another bell, maybe two, laughter and shouting echoing off the surrounding mountains, until the Warriors of Darkness finally began to drift off to sleep, one by one. When Ardbert was the only one left awake, he carefully leaned back on his stone perch, dragging the sleeping Ivar up to settle in a ball on his stomach, and crossed his arms behind his head. He felt a smile slowly stretch his lips as he gazed up at the glittering beauty of the sunless sea, basking in the welcoming embrace of a moonless night.

He had forgotten what hope had felt like over the past century of mad, lonely wandering. Now, here he was, as sane as any ghost could hope to be, with four more brilliant, ridiculous siblings of his heart that had done the same as he with his first sibs a hundred years gone: latched on and refused to let go. And here with them was the chance to finally see his mistakes righted once and for all, and see his home finally began to heal. Even should they encounter setbacks—he remembered the stories, there was always one finally hurdle; they’d have to see what the next days brought them—he knew Dancing Heron and Synnove and Rereha and Alakhai would find their way to victory, no matter the odds.

Hope…hope felt rather wonderful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap on another year! Thank you to everyone who cheerleaded, read, commented, and/or dropped a kudos, either here on Ao3 this past month or on tumblr during the challenge proper in September. <3!


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